IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1309.2274.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Entropy Law and the impossibility of perpetual economic growth

Author

Listed:
  • Henrique N. S'a Earp
  • Ademar R. Romeiro

Abstract

Every production-recycling iteration accumulates an inevitable proportion of its matter-energy in the environment, lest the production process itself would be a system in perpetual motion, violating the second law of Thermodynamics. Such high-entropy matter depletes finite stocks of ecosystem services provided by the ecosphere, hence are incompatible with the long-term growth in the material scale of the economic process. Moreover, the complex natural systems governing such stocks respond to depletion by possibly sudden environmental transitions, thus hindering markets' very ability to adapt to the new equilibrium conditions. Consequently, uncertainty of critical resilience thresholds constrains material economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Henrique N. S'a Earp & Ademar R. Romeiro, 2013. "The Entropy Law and the impossibility of perpetual economic growth," Papers 1309.2274, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1309.2274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.2274
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert M. Solow, 1974. "The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 12, pages 257-276, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Begüm Özkaynak & Fikret Adaman & Pat Devine, 2012. "The identity of ecological economics: retrospects and prospects," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 36(5), pages 1123-1142.
    3. repec:bla:kyklos:v:39:y:1986:i:2:p:167-79 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hoang, Thi Hong Van & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Energy consumption, financial development and economic growth in India: New evidence from a nonlinear and asymmetric analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 199-212.
    2. Dale W. Henderson & Stephen W. Salant, 1976. "Market anticipations, government policy, and the price of gold," International Finance Discussion Papers 81, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Grimaud, Andre & Rouge, Luc, 2003. "Non-renewable resources and growth with vertical innovations: optimum, equilibrium and economic policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 433-453, March.
    4. Hadi Sasana & Imam Ghozali, 2017. "The Impact of Fossil and Renewable Energy Consumption on the Economic Growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 194-200.
    5. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Fisher, Anthony C, 1981. "Hotelling's "Economics of Exhaustible Resources": Fifty Years Later," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 65-73, March.
    6. Wei Wang & Kehui Wei & Oleksandr Kubatko & Vladyslav Piven & Yulija Chortok & Oleksandr Derykolenko, 2023. "Economic Growth and Sustainable Transition: Investigating Classical and Novel Factors in Developed Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-15, August.
    7. Barbier, Bruno & Bergeron, Gilles, 2001. "Natural resource management in the hillsides of Honduras: bioeconomic modeling at the micro-watershed level," Research reports 123, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Orchard-Webb, Johanne & Kenter, Jasper O. & Bryce, Ros & Church, Andrew, 2016. "Deliberative Democratic Monetary Valuation to implement the Ecosystem Approach," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(PB), pages 308-318.
    9. Florian Fizaine, 2021. "La croissance verte est-elle durable et compatible avec l’économie circulaire ? Une approche par l’identité IPAT," Post-Print hal-03884377, HAL.
    10. Hänsel, Martin C. & Quaas, Martin F., 2018. "Intertemporal Distribution, Sufficiency, and the Social Cost of Carbon," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 520-535.
    11. Schilling, Markus & Chiang, Lichun, 2011. "The effect of natural resources on a sustainable development policy: The approach of non-sustainable externalities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 990-998, February.
    12. Tisdell, Clement A., 2000. "Globalisation, WTO and Sustainable Development," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48009, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    13. Levallois, Clément, 2010. "Can de-growth be considered a policy option? A historical note on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Club of Rome," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2271-2278, September.
    14. 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.
    15. Gijsbert T.J. Zwart, 2009. "European Natural Gas Markets: Resource Constraints and Market Power," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(1_suppl), pages 151-166, June.
    16. Marsh, Sally P. & Llewellyn, Rick S. & Powles, Stephen B., 2006. "Social costs of herbicide resistance: the case of resistance to glyphosate," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139881, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Nicolas Bouleau, 2013. "The Environmental Violence of Volatility," CIRED Working Papers halshs-00835669, HAL.
    18. Stephen Salant & Joshua Keller, 2024. "How Much is a Nonearning Asset with No Current Capital Gains Worth?," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 7-19, March.
    19. Mar Rubio & Mauricio Folchi, 2005. "The apparent consumption of fossil energy as an indicator of modernisation in Latin America by 1925: a proposal using foreign trade statistics," Working Papers 5056, Economic History Society.
    20. Kenji Fujiwara & Ngo Van Long, 2012. "Optimal Tariffs On Exhaustible Resources: The Case Of Quantity-Setting," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(04), pages 1-17.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:arx:papers:1309.2274. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.