628 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2X 
relevant conclusions, the analysis will be carried out with refe- 
rence 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 pro- 
positions: 
a) in the long run, the effects of technical progress are, on a 
(weighted) average, by far more important and more wide- 
spread than the effects of decreasing returns to scale ©). 
This means that, as time goes on, the coefficients of pro- 
duction 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 pro- 
gress, 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 disper- 
sion 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 produc- 
tivity but also of continuous additions of new sectors pro- 
ducing 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 de- 
mand. 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 
pag. 
J) -