SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC,
559
at a maximum rate, but labour would remain stationary or could
grow at a very small positive rate; so that a bottleneck due to a
deficiency of labour would inevitably emerge sooner or later; hence
the rate of real wages should be one of the variables of the programming.
Once wages are greater than the subsistence level, workers can
make choice among consumption goods, and the growth programme
lepends on consumer’s choice unless the consumption goods are
rationed by the planning authorities as will usually be done during
1 war. I am sure that a planning model in which workers are allowed
to choose consumption goods freely and the rate of growth of
population is finite and depends on the per-capita consumption deserves
serious attention and should be granted a citizenship of our
science.
DORFMAN
Professor MorisHiMA’s elegant model illustrates the ethical perplexities
that Professor KooPMANS has just discussed, For look: the
balanced growth rate is given by the intersection of the curve showing
the growth rate of the labor force as a function of the real wage
with the curve showing the equilibrium rate of interest also as a
function of the real wage. Technical change shifts this point of
ntersection, but if it increases the real wage it decreases the rate
of balanced growth, and vice versa. This model therefore portrays
1 trade-off between high real wages and high rates of growth, which,
of course, is to be expected in a full employment model. The novelty
is that this conflict ef interest between present and future results
from the possibility of technological change, whereas previous derivations
of this conflict assumed constant technology. Be that as
t may, this conflict presents just the sort of ethical problem that
concerned Professor KooPMANS.
This problem might disappear from Professor MoRISHIMA’s molel
if the curve portraying the rate of growth of the labor force also
shifted, It probably does shift in real economies. In fact, one of
lq,
Morishima - pag. 31
