SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L'ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 
a 
goods producing three types of consumer goods; the basket changes 
but there need not be any change in the total aggregation of capital 
goods which goes on increasing. The one-commodity model seems to 
me to be illustrative, and the conclusions may remain valid even 
if we have many commodities. This question, of course, cannot be 
settled without going through the full exercise of rigorous analysis. 
There are three points which have been summarised in sections 
5 and 6. The point about open end I think has been clearly brought 
out and is logically valid. 
[ am repeating the question again: whether one commodity or 
many commodities would affect that result. Theoretically some pre- 
ference functions may change. The order with which Prof. Koop- 
MANS started, that pattern of ordering, may also change. Bu: I 
think Prof. KooPMANS took care to point out that some kind of 
good ordering is all that he was keeping in mind. 
A further point which is discussed on page 32, that it is likely 
that technological advance would continue; even if it slows down, 
even then, from the point of view of the present generation, the 
discrimination would be in favour of future generations. The que- 
stion of basic decision is not whether the hundredth generation from 
now would be in a somewhat less favourable position; the decreasing 
return in terms of generations may be there even if the technological 
advance continued at the same rate. I do not see this as a very 
important consideration for present decisions. 
This particular paper seems to me to be of value because of 
the wider implications of this Study Week. It is not a Study Week 
arranged by a specialist econometric society but by the Pontifical 
Academy of Sciences. My interest, as I have continually stressed, 
's in the broader implications. And from that point of view I wel- 
come this paper as likely to have a very valuable educative effect. 
It is more difficult to speak on the question of population size. 
[t may differ from country to country. Prof. KooPMaNs has pointed 
out that where the density of population is extremely small, there 
may be some advantage in increasing their number, but where the 
density of population is high the position may be different 
4+) Koopmans - pag. 73