The Evolution of Georgescu-Roegen's Bioeconomics

Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics, 2022

A divergent series of Georgescu-Roegen's work is found in his penetrating epistemological reflections, those which inspire his entire corpus of scientific contributions. Said reflections work to convince him that any useful theory in economics must be an operational description of how economic realities actually function. In particular, proper operational description in economic science must be equipped with both analytical and dialectical reasoning. Georgescu-Roegen's unique position in economic science is signified by his proposal to reformulate economics as his own "bioeconomics", wherein the entropy law and the nature of Promethean destiny of human species are emphasized. Georgescu-Roegen is the only well-known economist to declare without hesitation that the primary purpose of economic activity is the self-preservation of the human species.

2000

CV0.:1 and The ~Iarginal Ut ili ty of \ 'loney 2.2.7 Economic ;yran and 0.' 1ethodological I ndividualism 2.

Ecological Economics, 1997

Ecological critics of economics have argued for over one hundred years that economists should study the flow of energy and materials in the economy. The services nature offers to the human economy cannot be adequately valued in the accounting system of neoclassical environmental and resource economics. Today's ecological economics does not only critizice; it also tries to provide physical indicators in order to judge whether the economy is ecologically sustainable. Beyond its decisive role in strengthening such ecological economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work currently still holds sway in two additional fields: consumption theory (as analysed by Gowdy, 1993); and agrarian economics. Are there relations between such fields of study and ecological economics? In this article, I shall first focus on the agrarian question, and then on intra-and inter-generational ecological distribution. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

Economia Agro/alimentare, 2023

Correctly understood Bioeconomics is (and entails) a critique of Political Economy. To-date, two quite different critiques of Political Economy are recognized: First, the well-known Marxist critique; second, the critique carried out by N. Georgescu-Roegen, the father of Bioeconomics. It is precisely this salient feature that lets us understand the two derivations of Bioeconomics, namely Ecological Economics, and Political Ecology. A critique of Political Economy just means that the economy must be understood and judged vis-à-vis its responsibility toward society as a whole or toward each and every individual, and especially vis-à-vis its compromises with nature. Such responsibilities and compromises are, to be sure, political in the widest but strongest sense of the word. Briefly stated, every economic decision-whether commercial, financial, monetary or entrepreneurial, has strong direct social, environmental and political consequences. Such consequences cannot, by any means, be taken for granted.

Development and Change, 2009

Recent concern for 'sustainability' has attracted attention to the comprehensive theory of economic development, institutional change and biophysical constraints developed by Romanian-born economist, mathematician and statistician Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. However, his seminal and pathbreaking contributions have still not received the attention they deserve from mainstream economists. Georgescu-Roegen's early work on consumer choice theory and his innovative critique of Leontief dynamic models have never been incorporated into standard economic theory or into current behavioural and biophysical critiques of that theory. His theory of economic development is a serious critique from within the conceptual edifice of economic thought which he himself helped build. His theoretical innovations provide essential clues for a fundamental analysis of sustainability, at the level of theory as well as of policy. Nicholas Georgescu was born in Constanta, Romania, in February 1906. He graduated from the mathematics department of Bucharest University in 1926 with the highest grade: foarte bine. On the advice of Traian Lelescu, a prominent Romanian mathematician, he went to study statistics at the University of Paris and obtained his PhD in 1930 with the dissertation 'On the problem of finding out the cyclical components of a phenomenon'. Having learned from the French mathematician George Darmoi some of the contributions of Karl Pearson, Georgescu-Roegen went to University College in London to study with him for two years. In 1932, he returned to Romania and became Professor of Statistics at Bucharest University. After obtaining a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1934, he went to the Harvard University Economic Barometer. Unfortunately for Georgescu-Roegen, he found that this organization had been disbanded soon after Black Tuesday-29 October 1929-because just the week before the crisis, it had predicted that all was in perfect order! This bad luck, however, brought Georgescu-Roegen the fortuitous opportunity to work with Joseph A. Schumpeter.

Rethinking economics, 2017

The Economics of Nature and the Nature of Economics

Like any field of scientific inquiry, ecological economics has evolved along several different fronts. One important element is an understanding of the history of the field, which is characterized by interwoven strands from ecology, physics, the physiocratic and classical schools of economics, and other fields in the social and natural social sciences. Another important area is the relation of neoclassical economics to ecological economics. Part of the impetus behind the creation of the International Society for Ecological Economics was the growing recognition that, by itself, neoclassical economics could not fully explain the sources of depletion and degradation, nor could it provide a reliable compass for future development. A third broad strand of work is the empirical analysis of energy and material flows within and between economic and environmental systems. This work ranges widely, from the construction of sustainability indicators to land use models. This book covers some of the important recent developments in the theory, concepts and empirical applications of ecological economics and sustainable development. It contains contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field of ecological economics. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, The Nature of Economics, includes chapters on the contribution of classical economics to ecological economics, valuation in ecological economics, the role of communication in the discourse on sustainable development, and a classification system for theories and methods in ecological economics. Part II, The Economics of Nature, includes chapters on alternatives to the growth paradigm, case studies of sustainable development and critical reviews of the environmental Kuznets curve, green national accounting, indicators of natural resource scarcity, and alternatives to gross domestic product.