Simple operations transform Hamilton's equations for particle motion in classical mechanics into energy units. Then one obtains a single equation in location, location-changes, momenta and momenta-changes with the interpretation: income from capital, in units of energy, balances with current...

This paper explores how accounting consistency affects DSGE models. As many DSGE models descended from real business cycle models, I explore a simple labor-only RBC model and then a simple capital-and-labor RBC model with an exogenous external sector introduced. The conclusion reached in this...

Critics of modern macroeconomics often raise concerns about unwarranted welfare conclusions and data mining. This paper illustrates these concerns with a thought experiment, based on the debate in environmental economics about the appropriate discount rate in climate change analyses: I set up an...

This paper presents the current land regime and nature of economic development found on most Native American reservations, drawing predominantly from the Navajo Nation. It then considers the situation according to (1) neo-classical economics and (2) New Institutional Economics (NIE). The paper...

This paper offers a retrospective view of the key pillar of Solow's neoclassical growth model, namely the aggregate production function. We review how this tool came to life and how it has survived until today, despite three criticisms that undermined its raison d'être. They are the Cambridge...

Donald Walker has provided us with a three-volume collection of work drawn from the literature of the past half-century intended to illustrate the variations over that period in the form and substance of the economist's concept of "equilibrium" and, in so doing, to complement the well-known...

This paper has three parts. The first will discuss the fundamentals concerning both the nature of knowledge and the nature of the methodological requirements of explanation in neoclassical economics. The second will show how these fundamentals are applied to the explanation of economic decision...

In this article, as part of the symposium on total factor productivity, Richard G. Lipsey of Simon Fraser University and Kenneth Carlaw of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand provide a trenchant critique of the concept of total factor productivity. They conclude that "the degree of...

This paper explores dimensional analysis of production and utility functions in economics. As raised by Barnett, dimensional analysis is important in consistency checks of economics functions. However, unlike Barnett's dismissal of CES and Cobb-Douglas production functions, we will demonstrate...

Cet article propose une evaluation critique de ce que le courant néoclassique appelle la "nouvelle theorie" de la croissance. Il analyse ce qu'est la "croissance endogene", en presentant, dans une premiere partie, les origines, mecanismes et catégories de modèles à progres technique...