Economics and Thermodynamics

This book offers insights into recent research focusing on the interface between thermodynamics and economics. Although nonequilibrium thermodynamics and self-organisation appear to offer more exciting possibilities for economic application, the early papers in the volume demonstrate that economic insights are still derivable from the standpoint of classical thermodynamics. In particular, the analytical framework set out decades ago by John von Neumann is shown to be a particularly rich source of insights and new perspectives. The book attempts both to promote and critically evaluate the application of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of economics. The latter part of the book stresses that there are aspects of socioeconomic systems which we cannot understand using only the thermodynamic analogy, although thermodynamic metaphors can still offer us inspiration in formulating unique characterisations of economic complexity and organisation. The emerging fields of artificial life simulation and the mathematics of nonlinear dynamics also have a role to play in the paradigmatic shift which is now found in economics. Furthermore, it has to be acknowledged that a great deal of economic wisdom currently contained in orthodox economic thought will be of continued relevance and, indeed, may constitute much of the distinctiveness of self-organisational processes in the domain of economic analysis.