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PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 28
troduced in the form of a « rate of technical progress », which
has been treated exactly like, and svmmetricallv to. the rate
of population growth (?).
Unfortunately, this approach has been accepted rather un-
critically so far. It is my purpose to criticize and abandon it.
But before doing so, I must invite the reader to take a closer
look at all the implications that this approach entails. Our
disaggregated formulations will turn out to be very useful in
this task.
As said above, any macro-economic analysis implies that
all variables considered are measured in terms of a composite
commodity or « basket of goods » of fixed and invariable com-
position through time. Therefore, unless the macro-economic
framework is given up altogether, the introduction of a rate
of technical progress in such an analysis necessarily implies
two further and much more specific assumptions: 1) that techn-
ical progress is going on at the same rate in all sectors of the
economy; and 2) that demand for each product is expanding
at the same rate.
Let us carefully consider a hypothetical case of economic
growth in which these two assumptions are satisfied.
theory. The first type of models is perhaps best represented by: J. Ro-
BINSON, The Accumulation of Capital, London, 1956, and N. KALDOR,
A Model of Economic Growth in « The Economic Journal », 1957. The
most representative examples of the neo-classical models are perhaps:
R.M. SoLow, À Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth in « The
Quarterly Journal of Economics », February, 1956; and J. Meape, 4 Neo-
Classical Theory of Economic Growth, London, 1961.
(*) In the present and following chapters, we shall normally consider
percentage, i.e. relative rates of change. However, for brevity’s sake, and
following what has by now become a custom, in economic literature, the
words percentage or relative will normally be omitted, except in those
cases where their omission may generate misunderstanding.
10} Pasinetti - pag. 50
