Looking at Economics Through the Eyes of Thermodynamics: A New Approach to the Second Law of Economics, and Its Main Revelations

Description

Vítor Costa proposes a new form of the second law of thermodynamics translated into economics, in a 2026 theoretical work. The first law version sets conservation rules, yet it cannot capture one-way change or measure imperfection. The author builds the second law from watching an isolated economic system drift toward a balance point for traded goods, named merchandise economic thermal equilibrium.

That drift demands a new property, merchandise economic entropy, and an absolute temperature scale for goods defined at the point of greatest entropy. Temperature change and change in traded units run in the same direction under this scheme. Each economic system gains its own built-in demand curve, and a third law follows from the shape of the entropy function. A differential equation and a generation term complete the frame, with generation offered as the best gauge of how imperfect, or irreversible, an economic process runs.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13512182