Marketplace as organism
The always-provocative Journal of Bionomics—a relatively new field linking biology, psychology, and economics—has a special issue out on biology and social behavior.
Here’s a PDF of the intro by celebrated UCLA economist Jack Hirshleifer.
Be sure to check out Gordon P. Getty’s paper (PDF here), where he outlines “total return economics” or TRE—a biological approach to growth theory and the national income accounts.
It’s math-heavy, so here’s the bottom line: TRE supports Robert Solow’s claim that all growth comes from productivity increases—not savings per se. That means policymakers are probably wasting their time trying to boost growth by prodding consumers to save more.
Posted by Andrew on Wednesday March 24, 2004 | Feedback?
