[AGsist]

HN note: the SSRN page is still being processed and temporarily shows the standard “under review” placeholder.

The working preprint version is available here:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18912296

The paper explores a structural asymmetry in macroeconomic accounting:

Capital accumulates and appears as a stock variable.

Human lifetime accumulates historically as well, yet it never qualifies as a macroeconomic stock and only enters models as a flow or demographic constraint.

The argument is that stock variables require two institutional properties: (1) detachment from biological identity (2) continuity across generations.

Capital satisfies both. Lifetime does not.

Curious how economists or system designers here think about this constraint.