凯恩斯1937年演讲稿：人口减少的经济后果——药方是更公平的分配

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An increasing population has a very important influence on the demand for capital. Not onlydoes the demand for capital——apart from technical changes and an improved standard of life——increase more or less in proportion to population. But, business expectations being based much more on present than on prospective demand, an era of increasing population tends to promote optimism, since demand will ingeneral tend to exceed, rather than fall short of what was hoped for. Moreover a mistake, resulting in a particular type of capital being in temporary over-supply, is in such conditions rapidly corrected. But in an era of declining population the opposite is true. Demand tends to be below what was expected, and a state of over-supply is less easily corrected. Thus a pessimistic atmosphere may ensue; and, although at long last pessimism may tendto correct itself through its effect on supply, the first result to prosperity of a change-over from an increasing to a declining population may be very disastrous.

人口增加对资本需求有非常重要的影响。 除了技术变革和生活水平的提高外，资本的需求或多或少地与人口成比例增长。 但是，商业预期更多的是基于当前的需求而不是未来的需求，人口增长的时代往往会滋生乐观主义，因为需求通常会超过而不是低于预期。此外，在这种情况下，导致某类资本暂时供过于求的错误会迅速得到纠正。但 在一个人口减少的时代，情况恰恰相反。需求往往低于预期，而供过于求的状态则不太容易纠正。 因此，悲观的气氛可能随之而来；并且， 尽管悲观主义最终可能通过影响供给而自我纠正，但从人口增加到人口减少的转变给繁荣带来的首要后果可能是灾难性的。

In assessing thecauses of the enormous increase in capital during the nineteenth century and since, too little importance, I think, has been given to the influence of an increasing population as distinct from other influences. The demand for capital depends, of course, on three factors; on population, on the standard of life,and on capital technique. By capital technique I mean the relative importanceof long processes as an efficient method of procuring what is currently consumed, the factor I have in mind being conveniently described as the period of production, which is, roughly speaking, a weighted average of the interval which elapses between the work done and the consumption of the product. Inother words the demand for capital depends on the number of consumers, the average level of consumption, and the average period of production.

我认为，在评估 19 世纪以来资本大量增加的原因时，不同于其他影响因素，人口增长的影响没有得到足够的重视。当然，对资本的需求取决于三个因素：人口、生活水平和资本技术。我所说的资本技术是指长期内作为采购当前消费品的有效方法的相对重要性，我所考虑的因素可以方便地描述为生产周期，粗略地说，它是所做工作和产品消费之间的时间间隔的加权平均。换言之， 对资本的需求取决于消费者人数、平均消费水平和平均生产周期。

Now it isnecessarily the case that an increase in population increases proportionately the demand for capital; and the progress of invention may be relied on to raise the standard of life. But the effect of invention on the period of production depends on the type of invention which is characteristic of the age. It may have been true of the nineteenth century that improvements in transport,standards of housing and public services were of such a character that they didtend somewhat to increase the period of consumption. It is well known that highly durable objects were characteristic of the Victorian civilization. But it is not equally clear that the same thing is true today. Many modern inventions are directed towards finding ways of reducing the amount a given result; and partlyas the result of our experience as to the rapidity of change in tastes and technique,our preference is decidedly directed towards those types of capital goods whichare not too durable. I do not believe, therefore, that we can rely on current changes of technique being of the kind which tend of themselves to increase materially the average period of production. It may even be the case that, apart from the effect of possible changes in the rate of interest, the average period may be tending to diminish. Moreover an improving average level of consumption may conceivably have, in itself, the effect of diminishing the average period of production. For as we get richer, our consumption tends to be directed towards those articles of consumption, particularly the services ofother people, which have a relatively short average period of production.

现在，人口的增加必然会按比例增加对资本的需求；还可以通过技术进步来提高生活水平。但是，发明对生产周期的影响，取决于该时代特有的发明类型。十九世纪的情况可能是这样的： 交通、住房标准和公共服务的改进在一定程度上具有延长消费期的特点。 众所周知，高度耐用的物品是维多利亚时代文明的特征。但是，同样的事情在今天是否属实，并不十分清楚。许多现代发明都是为了找到减少某一特定结果的方法；还有一部分是出于我们的喜好和技术快速变化的经验，我们对那些 资本节约型商品 的偏好是明确的。因此，我认为，不能依赖目前的技术变化，这种变化本身就会大大增加平均生产周期。甚至可能的情况是，除了利率的可能变化的影响之外，平均周期可能趋于缩减。此外，可以想象， 平均消费水平的提高，本身就有减少平均生产周期的作用。因为随着我们越来越富有，我们的消费倾向于转向那些平均生产周期较短的消费物品，特别是平均生命周期相对较短的其他人的服务 。

Now, if the number of consumers is falling off and we cannot rely on any significant technical lengthening of the period of production, the demand for a net increase of capital goods is thrown back into being wholly dependent on an improvement inthe average level of consumption or on a fall in the rate of interest. I will attempt to give a few very rough figures to illustrate the order of magnitude of the different factors involves.

现在， 如果消费者的数量正在减少，而且不能指望生产周期有任何重大技术性延长，那么对资本品净增长的需求就会完全取决于平均消费水平的提高或利率的下降。 我将尝试给出几个非常粗略的数字，以说明所涉及的不同因素的大小顺序。

Let us consider the period of just over fifty years from 1860 to 1913. I find no evidence ofany important change in the length of the technical period of production. Statistics of quantity of real capital present special difficulties. But those which we have do not suggest that there have been large changes in the amount of capital employed to produce a unit of output. Two of the most highly capitalized services, those of housing and of agriculture, are old-established. Agriculture hasdiminished in relative importance. Only if people were to spend a decidedly increased proportion of their incomes on housing, as to which there is indeed acertain amount of evidence for the post-war period, should I expect asignificant lengthening of the technical period of production. For the fifty years before the war, during which the long-period average of the rate ofinterest was fairly constant, I feel some confidence that the period was notlengthened by much more than 10 per cent., if as much.

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