American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics · 2026 · Mohamad Adhami、Mark Bils、Charles I. Jones、Peter J. Klenow
中文摘要
经济增长通常以人均口径衡量。然而，哲学中一个悠久的传统认为，社会福利也可能取决于人口数量。为说明这在数量上有多大影响，我们将以消费等价（CE）单位衡量的福利增长分解为人口增长和人均消费增长两部分的贡献。由于消费的边际效用递减，人口增长会被一个生命价值因子放大，该因子自1960年以来在各国的经验均值接近3。因此，若采取总体功利主义视角，人口增长便是增长的主要贡献因素。(JEL E21, E23, I30, J11, O11, O47)
Abstract
Economic growth is typically measured in per capita terms. A long tradition in philosophy, however, suggests that social welfare may depend on the number of people as well. To illustrate how much this matters quantitatively, we decompose welfare growth—measured in consumption-equivalent (CE) units—into contributions from rising population and rising per capita consumption. Because of diminishing marginal utility from consumption, population growth is scaled up by a value-of-life factor that empirically averages nearly 3 across countries since 1960. Population increases are therefore a major contributor to growth if one takes a total utilitarian perspective. (JEL E21, E23, I30, J11, O11, O47)