628 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2X

relevant conclusions, the analysis will be carried out with reference
 to those movements that empirical findings have by now
shown to be everywhere the most typical ones in a modern
society. These movement may be briefly stated in three propositions:


a) in the long run, the effects of technical progress are, on a
(weighted) average, by far more important and more widespread
 than the effects of decreasing returns to scale ©).
This means that, as time goes on, the coefficients of production
 decrease (i.e. productivity increases) in most sectors,
although in a few sectors the coefficients might increase (i.e.
productivity decrease);
b) as a net effect of decreasing returns and of technical progress,
 each production coefficient is slowly but persistently
moving through time. However, each coefficient is moving
at a different speed. In other words, there is a wide dispersion
 amongst the rates of change of productivity referring
to the different branches of the economy (5);
c) technical progress consists not only of increases in productivity
 but also of continuous additions of new sectors producing
 new and better goods for the economic svstem.

y, The demand aspect of technical change

Let us now consider the effects of technical change on demand.
 If on the whole technical change is in the direction of
a persistently increasing trend of productivity, it means a

() The simplest empirical confirmation of this proposition is that in all
industrial countries, per-capita income is enormously higher today than it
was when they began to industrialize.
(°) Cf. for example the interesting study by F. L. Hirt, a new Look
at Productivity Growth Rates, in « Survey of Current Business », 1957.

[10] Pasinetti

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