IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v176y2020ics0921800919310882.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Georgescu-Roegen's Flow-Fund Theory of Production in Retrospect

Author

Listed:
  • Couix, Quentin

Abstract

This paper provides a synthetic account of Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund theory, as a contribution to the history of ecological economics. It reconstitutes Georgescu-Roegen's perspective on production, and its relationships with other frameworks, such as the neoclassical production function and input-output tables. The overall purpose is to clearly establish the foundations of the flow-fund theory, and to introduce the research perspectives it opens for ecological economics. The paper puts particular emphasis on the relationships between the flow-fund framework and two other aspects of Georgescu-Roegen's thought. First, his methodological perspective on economics, and the role of mathematical models, allows for a better understanding of the foundations of the flow-fund theory. Second, this framework incorporates Georgescu-Roegen's interest in the physical dimension of the economic process and the implications of the laws of thermodynamics. Overall, the paper concludes that the flow-fund theory has solid foundations, and thus represents a credible alternative to standard theories of production. However, in order to show how this framework can shed light on contemporary issues in ecological economics, more applications are needed, especially at the theoretical level. The main challenge for future research is to develop such applications while trying to be faithful to the foundations of the flow-fund theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Couix, Quentin, 2020. "Georgescu-Roegen's Flow-Fund Theory of Production in Retrospect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:176:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919310882
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106749
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310882
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106749?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1979. "Methods in Economic Science," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 317-328, June.
    2. Giampietro, Mario & Mayumi, Kozo & Ramos-Martin, Jesus, 2009. "Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): Theoretical concepts and basic rationale," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 313-322.
    3. Quentin Couix, 2019. "Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 1341-1378, November.
    4. Mohammed Khan, 2014. "Representation, Language, and Theory: Georgescu-Roegen on Methods in Economic Science," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 49-88.
    5. Martinez-Alier, Joan & Munda, Giuseppe & O'Neill, John, 1998. "Weak comparability of values as a foundation for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 277-286, September.
    6. Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh, 1999. "Materials, Capital, Direct/Indirect Substitution, and Mass Balance Production Functions," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 75(4), pages 547-561.
    7. Keen, Steve & Ayres, Robert U. & Standish, Russell, 2019. "A Note on the Role of Energy in Production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 40-46.
    8. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1969. "Process in Farming Versus Process in Manufacturing: A Problem of Balanced Development," International Economic Association Series, in: Ugo Papi & Charles Nunn (ed.), Economic Problems of Agriculture in Industrial Societies, chapter 0, pages 497-533, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Philip Mirowski, 1988. "Energy and Energetics in Economic Theory: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 811-830, September.
    10. Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2013. "The Fund-Flow Approach: A Critical Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 209-233, April.
    11. Roxana Bobulescu, 2012. "The making of a Schumpeterian economist: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 625-651, August.
    12. Farrell, Katharine N. & Mayumi, Kozo, 2009. "Time horizons and electricity futures: An application of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's general theory of economic production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 301-307.
    13. Cleveland, Cutler J. & Ruth, Matthias, 1997. "When, where, and by how much do biophysical limits constrain the economic process?: A survey of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's contribution to ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 203-223, September.
    14. John Gowdy & Susan Mesner, 1998. "The Evolution of Georgescu-Roegen's Bioeconomics," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(2), pages 136-156.
    15. Gowdy, John & O'Hara, Sabine, 1997. "Weak sustainability and viable technologies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 239-247, September.
    16. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, 1970. "The Economics of Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(2), pages 1-9, May.
    17. Daly, Herman E., 1997. "Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow/Stiglitz," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 261-266, September.
    18. Krysiak, Frank C., 2006. "Entropy, limits to growth, and the prospects for weak sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 182-191, June.
    19. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    20. Mayumi, Kozo, 2005. "An epistemological critique of the open Leontief dynamic model: Balanced and sustained growth, delays, and anticipatory systems theory," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 540-556, December.
    21. Antoine Missemer, 2017. "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and degrowth," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 493-506, May.
    22. Giampietro, Mario & Mayumi, Kozo, 1997. "A dynamic model of socioeconomic systems based on hierarchy theory and its application to sustainability," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 453-469, October.
    23. N. Georgescu-Roegen, 1960. "Economic Theory And Agrarian Economics," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-40.
    24. Santos, João & Domingos, Tiago & Sousa, Tânia & St. Aubyn, Miguel, 2018. "Useful Exergy Is Key in Obtaining Plausible Aggregate Production Functions and Recognizing the Role of Energy in Economic Growth: Portugal 1960–2009," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 103-120.
    25. Mayumi, Kozo, 1997. "Information, pseudo measures and entropy: An elaboration on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's critique," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 249-259, September.
    26. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1972. "Process Analysis and the Neoclassical Theory of Production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 54(2), pages 279-294.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. François Allisson & Antoine Missemer, 2020. "Some Historiographical Tools for the Study of Intellectual Legacies," Post-Print halshs-02931492, HAL.
    2. Pauline Marty & Sabrina Dermine-Brullot & Sophie Madelrieux & Julie Fleuet & Philippe Lescoat, 2021. "Transformation of socioeconomic metabolism due to development of the bioeconomy: the case of northern Aube (France)," Post-Print hal-03263050, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. François Allisson & Antoine Missemer, 2020. "Some Historiographical Tools for the Study of Intellectual Legacies," Post-Print halshs-02931492, HAL.
    2. Quentin Couix, 2019. "Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 1341-1378, November.
    3. Quentin Couix, 2018. "From Methodology to Practice (and Back): Georgescu-Roegen's Philosophy of Economics and the Flow-Fund Model," Post-Print halshs-01854031, HAL.
    4. Suprinyak, Carlos Eduardo, 2022. "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Development Economist," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 205-225, June.
    5. Gerber, Julien-François & Scheidel, Arnim, 2018. "In Search of Substantive Economics: Comparing Today's Two Major Socio-metabolic Approaches to the Economy – MEFA and MuSIASEM," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 186-194.
    6. Philippe Dulbecco & Pierre Garrouste, 2004. "Théorie de la dynamique économique. Une réévaluation de la tentative de Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 70(1), pages 5-29.
    7. Roma, Antonio & Pirino, Davide, 2009. "The extraction of natural resources: The role of thermodynamic efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2594-2606, August.
    8. Scheidel, Arnim, 2013. "Flows, funds and the complexity of deprivation: Using concepts from ecological economics for the study of poverty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 28-36.
    9. Ayres, Robert U. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2005. "A theory of economic growth with material/energy resources and dematerialization: Interaction of three growth mechanisms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 96-118, October.
    10. Dube, Benjamin, 2021. "Why cross and mix disciplines and methodologies?: Multiple meanings of Interdisciplinarity and pluralism in ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Christoph Heinzel, 2013. "Schumpeter and Georgescu-Roegen on the foundations of an evolutionary analysis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(2), pages 251-271.
    12. Quentin Couix, 2018. "The role of natural resources in production: Georgescu-Roegen/ Daly versus Solow/ Stiglitz," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01702401, HAL.
    13. Moriah B. Bostian & Cinzia Daraio & Rolf Fare & Shawna Grosskopf & Maria Grazia Izzo & Luca Leuzzi & Giancarlo Ruocco & William L. Weber, 2018. "Inference for Nonparametric Productivity Networks: A Pseudo-likelihood Approach," DIAG Technical Reports 2018-06, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    14. Antonio Roma & Davide Pirino, 2008. "A Theoretical Model for the Extraction and Refinement of Natural Resources," Department of Economics University of Siena 537, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    15. Pirgmaier, Elke, 2017. "The Neoclassical Trojan Horse of Steady-State Economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 52-61.
    16. Farrell, Katharine N. & Silva-Macher, Jose Carlos, 2017. "Exploring Futures for Amazonia's Sierra del Divisor: An Environmental Valuation Triadics Approach to Analyzing Ecological Economic Decision Choices in the Context of Major Shifts in Boundary Condition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 166-179.
    17. Michalis Nikiforos, 2011. "On the Desired Rate of Capacity Utilization," Working Papers 1116, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    18. Fagnart, Jean-François & Germain, Marc, 2011. "Quantitative versus qualitative growth with recyclable resource," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 929-941, March.
    19. Arnaud Diemer, 2010. "Comment construire des savoirs transversaux face à l'excès d'économie ?," Post-Print halshs-00957874, HAL.
    20. Mario Giampietro & Kozo Mayumi & Jesus Ramos-Martín, 2008. "Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MUSIASEM): An Outline of Rationale and Theory," Working Papers wpdea0801, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:176:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919310882. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.