Entropic Irreversibility and Uncontrolled Technological Change in Economy and Environment

Martin O'Connor

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 1993, vol. 3, issue 4, 285-315

Abstract: A joint production model representing "Spaceship Earth" is used to explore at a conceptual level, implications of natural resource depletion and economic waste production for economy-environment change. Ecological change is considered as uncontrolled technological innovation, partially induced through disposal of unwanted "surpluses" (by-products and "wastes" from economic activity). These surpluses may accumulate as wastelands, or (more likely) contribute to uncontrolled ecological change. Technologically stationary economy-environment steady-state solutions are contrasted with instability and forced change where either the technologies or the patterns of resource allocation in economic and environmental processes are incompatible with a steady state.

Date: 1993
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Journal of Evolutionary Economics is currently edited by Uwe Cantner, Elias Dinopoulos, Horst Hanusch and Luigi Orsenigo

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