Related papers: A physical theory of economic growth
We collect and analyze the data for working time, life expectancy, and the pair output and infrastructure of industrializing nations. During S-functional recovery from disaster the pair's time shifts yield 25 years for the infrastructure's…
The analysis of the demographic transition of the past century and a half, using both empirical data and mathematical models, has rendered a wealth of well-established facts, including the dramatic increases in life expectancy. Despite…
For those concerned with the long-term value of their accounts, it can be a challenge to plan in the present for inflation-adjusted economic growth over coming decades. Here, I argue that there exists an economic constant that carries…
We introduce the logistic model of consumption growth, which captures a negative feedback loop preventing an unlimited growth of consumption due to finite biophysical resources of our planet. This simple dynamic model allows for derivation…
It is still common wisdom amongst economists, politicians and lay people that economic growth is a necessity of our social systems, at least to avoid distributional conflicts. This paper challenges such belief moving from a purely physical…
Global historical series spanning the last two centuries recently became available for primary energy consumption (PEC) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Based on a thorough analysis of the data, we propose a new, simple macroeconomic model…
Growth theory has rarely considered energy despite its invisible hand in all physical systems. We develop a theoretical framework that places energy transfers at centerstage of growth theory based on two principles: (1) goods are material…
We develop a theory of demand economics for an era of material abundance. The binding constraint on growth has shifted from insufficient aggregate demand to inadequate demand-tier upgrading. Our result is that, the new engine of growth lies…
Climate change has become intertwined with the global economy. Here, we describe the importance of inertia to continued growth in energy consumption. Drawing from thermodynamic arguments, and using 38 years of available statistics between…
This paper develops a new model of business cycles. The model is economical in that it is solved with an aggregate demand-aggregate supply diagram, and the effects of shocks and policies are obtained by comparative statics. The model builds…
Functions or 'functionings' enable to give a structure to any activity and their combinations constitute the capabilities which characterize economic assets such as work utility. The basic law of supply and demand naturally emerges from…
All economies require physical resource consumption to grow and maintain their structure. The modern economy is additionally characterized by private debt. The Human and Resources with MONEY (HARMONEY) economic growth model links these…
The contradiction between physical and economical sciences concerning the growth of the production/consumption mechanism is analyzed. It is then shown that if one wishes to keep the security level stable or to enhance it in a growing…
Well protected human and laboratory animal populations with abundant resources are evolutionary unprecedented. Physical approach, which takes advantage of their extensively quantified mortality, establishes that its dominant fraction yields…
Economic growth and the growth of human population in the past 2,000,000 years are extensively examined. Data are found to be in a clear contradiction of the currently accepted explanations of the mechanism of growth, which revolve around…
This paper studies a discrete-time version of the Lucas-Uzawa endogenous growth model with physical and human capital in the presence of externalities. Existence of an optimal equilibrium is proved using tools from dynamic programming with…
Is a causal description of human wealth history conceivable? To investigate the matter we introduce a simple causal albeit strongly aggregated model, assuming that the observed wealth growth is mainly driven by human collaborative efforts…
Long-range climate forecasts use integrated assessment models to link the global economy to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper evaluates an alternative economic framework outlined in part 1 of this study (Garrett, 2014) that approaches…
Why are human societies unstable? Theories based on the observation of recurring patterns in historical data indicate that economic inequality, as well as social factors are key drivers. So far, models of this phenomenon are more…
We explore the nonlinear dynamics of a macroeconomic model with resource constraints. The dynamics is derived from a production function that considers capital and a generalized form of energy as inputs. Energy, the new variable, is…