Sunday, July 10, 2005

L&S: Economical Terminology

How did I manage to get through a graduate economics education without ever hearing the terms that Steve Davies just introduced? He distinguished between extensive and intensive economic growth. By the former, he means increasing output as a result in increasing inputs. By the latter, he means increasing output using the same or even fewer inputs. This is, of course, a fundamental distinction in economics; before today, I would have characterized the difference as “output expansion within a given production function” versus “output expansion via technological change (i.e., movement to a new production function).” But I welcome Steve’s more economical economic terminology.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Isn't the distinction Marx's?