EXPONENTIAL ECONOMIST MEETS FINITE PHYSICIST (COMMENT).

EXPONENTIAL ECONOMIST MEETS FINITE PHYSICIST (COMMENT). Henry Nejako in a comment here called my attention to what Henry—rightly—calls “a clever dialogue between a physicist and and economist about the limits to economic growth, set forth in four acts and an epilogue.” Here is the dialogue. The essay is written as part of a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Limits to Growth study. The model underlying the Limits to Growth arguments assumed a fixed amount of some input (food, land or energy) necessary to economic growth and an exponential economic growth rate. The Limits to Growth study came out just prior to the Arab Oil Embargo, and the model was often applied with a fixed amount of energy (oil, coal, etc.). The result of the model was that something had to give. The usual conclusion was that economic growth would come to an end.