ABSTRACT
Ramsey’s famous paper [11] created the subject o f optimum economic growth. The chief deficiency in the subject as he left it, despite some illuminating comments, was the unrealism of his assumptions.2 I do not intend to make the shallow and pointless complaint that his assumptions are not exactly right. The point is that we have not, up to the present, known how to calculate optimum policies for models that might be a useful approximation to economies we know. It must now be assumed that technological change is an important influence on growth: models that neglect it are useful for developing analytic tools, but give no guidance for applications.
