Simon Kuznets Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income.

Simon Kuznets
The central theme of this paper is the character and causes of long-term changes in the personal distribution of income. Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth? What factors determine the secular level and trends of income inequalities?

Simon Kuznets
The very fact that after a while, an increasing proportion of the urban population was "native," i. e., born in cities rather than in the rural areas, and hence more able to take advantage of the possibilities of city life in preparation for the economic struggle, meant a better chance for organization and adaptation, a better basis for securing greater income shares than was possible for the newly "immigrant" population coming from the countryside or from abroad

Simon Kuznets
[The principal characteristic of this economic epoch is] a sustained increase in per capita or per worker product, most often accompanied by an increase in population and usually sweeping structural changes.

Simon Kuznets
[An] epochal innovation [consisting of the] spreading application of science to processes of production and social organization.

Simon Kuznets
The inescapable conclusion is that the direct contribution of man-hours and capital accumulation would hardly account for more than a tenth of the rate of growth in per capita product — and probably less. The large remainder must be assigned to an increase in efficiency in the productive resources, or the effects of changing arrangements, or to the impact of technological change, or to all three

Simon Kuznets
We need far more empirical study than we have had so far of the universe of inventors; any finding concerning inventors... would be of great value... for public policy in regard to inventive activity.

Simon Kuznets
The rural and urban populations does not necessarily drift downward in the process of economic growth: indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that it is stable at best, and tends to widen because per capita productivity in urban pursuits increases more rapidly than in agriculture.

Simon Kuznets
Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long term. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.

Simon Kuznets