经济学、时间与时代Economics, time, and age.pdf

THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE ECONOMICS, TIME, AND AGE RICHARD A. POSNER TWENTY FIFTHGEARY LECTURE, 1994 Copies of this paper may be obtainedfrom The Economie and Social Research Institute (Limited Company No. 18269). Registered Office: 4 Burlington Road, Dublin 4, Ire land Priee lRf:5.00 ISBN 0 7070 0150 1 Richard A. Posner is a Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Senior Lecturer, University of Chicago Law School. This paper has been accepted for publication by the Institute which is not responsible for either the content or the views expressed therein. © 1994 Richard A. Posner. AlI rights reserved. Il Economies, Time, and Age Richard A. Posner* 1 Introduction 1have long wanted to visit Ireland. 1majored in literature in col- lege, and wrote my senior thesis on the late poetry of William Butler Yeats, and 1find myself returning to Yeatss poetry again and again. Yeats was, among other things, the greatest poet of old age, and he was also, among the great poets, probably the only one who improved with age at least until his fifties and who wrote great poetry right up into his seventies and indeed until days before his death. 1 am going to talk today about two aspects of the economics of ageing: the psychology of ageing, where 1 will be drawing directly on Yeats, though only in small part; and creativity and ageing, where Yeats stands as representative of people who retain their creativity at advanced ages. Neither the psychology of ageing nor creativity is a topic ordinarily associated w