Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Economics and Thermodynamics: New Perspectives on Economic Analysis

0/5 ( ratings)

Over the past two decades we have witnessed something of a revolution in the natural sciences as thermodynamic thinking evolved from an equilibrium, or 'classical', perspective, to a nonequilibrium, or 'self- organisational' one. In this transition, thermodynamics has been applied in new ways and in new fields of inquiry. Chemical and biological processes have been analysed, increasingly, in non- equilibrium thermodynamical terms. Economics has, since the late 19th century, relied heavily upon metaphors and analogies derived from the natural sciences - mechanical analogies cast in terms of traditional Newtonian physics and expressed in terms of Cartesian logic have been especially popular. Thermodynamics, on the other hand, has been less popular, despite its early application in economics by Stanley Jevons, the father of modern notions of utility maximisation in neoclassical economics, and despite its promotion in economic contexts by Paul Samuelson, the author of the definitive treatise upon which post war neoclassical economic theory was based, namely, his Foundations of Economic Analysis. The general neglect of thermodynamic thinking in economics was brought to our attention by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in the late 1960s, by which time economic theory, evidenced in, for example, the Arrow- Debreu general eqUilibrium system, had become so sophisticated that it could not be penetrated by thermodynamical ideas. To Georgescu- Roegen, this presented something of a crisis in economics because neglect of thermodynamics led, in his view, to blindness amongst economists to an economy/environment problem in the global economy.

Language: English

Pages: 258

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Springer

Release: August 31, 1994

ISBN: 0792394461

ISBN 13: 9780792394464

Economics and Thermodynamics: New Perspectives on Economic Analysis

0/5 ( ratings)

Over the past two decades we have witnessed something of a revolution in the natural sciences as thermodynamic thinking evolved from an equilibrium, or 'classical', perspective, to a nonequilibrium, or 'self- organisational' one. In this transition, thermodynamics has been applied in new ways and in new fields of inquiry. Chemical and biological processes have been analysed, increasingly, in non- equilibrium thermodynamical terms. Economics has, since the late 19th century, relied heavily upon metaphors and analogies derived from the natural sciences - mechanical analogies cast in terms of traditional Newtonian physics and expressed in terms of Cartesian logic have been especially popular. Thermodynamics, on the other hand, has been less popular, despite its early application in economics by Stanley Jevons, the father of modern notions of utility maximisation in neoclassical economics, and despite its promotion in economic contexts by Paul Samuelson, the author of the definitive treatise upon which post war neoclassical economic theory was based, namely, his Foundations of Economic Analysis. The general neglect of thermodynamic thinking in economics was brought to our attention by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in the late 1960s, by which time economic theory, evidenced in, for example, the Arrow- Debreu general eqUilibrium system, had become so sophisticated that it could not be penetrated by thermodynamical ideas. To Georgescu- Roegen, this presented something of a crisis in economics because neglect of thermodynamics led, in his view, to blindness amongst economists to an economy/environment problem in the global economy.

Language: English

Pages: 258

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Springer

Release: August 31, 1994

ISBN: 0792394461

ISBN 13: 9780792394464

More books from John Foster

Philosophy of Complex Systems: Volume 10

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Flexibility and Stability in the Innovating Economy

Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present

Commerce, Complexity, and Evolution: Topics in Economics, Finance, Marketing, and Management: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics

Applied Evolutionary Economics and Complex Systems

Elgar Companion to Neo-Schumpeterian Economics

Economic Evolution, Learning, and Complexity

Evolutionary Theories of Economic and Technological Change: Present Status and Future Prospects

Schumpeterian Perspectives on Innovation, Competition and Growth

Carbon Pricing: Early Experience and Future Prospects

Growth, Employment, And Inflation: Essays In Honour Of John Cornwall

The Elgar Companion to Alfred Marshall

Rate this book!

Write a review?