Materials > Ecological Economics

The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was a Romanian-born economist who pioneered the introduction of the laws of thermodynamics, and particularly entropy, into the field of economics. As a foundational figure of bioeconomics, his contribution to the analysis and relevance of natural limits to economic growth has been essential for the development of ecological economics. We invite here to…

Nicholas Georgescu-RoegenBooks
A Marxist Precursor of Energy Economics: Podolinsky / Responses

Since its origin, various approaches to ecological economics have emphasized its emphasis on natural limits in confrontation with neoclassical economics, but also in critical dialogue with Marxist economics. According to these positions, the theoretical analysis of Marxist economics, centered on exchange value, would have marginalized biophysical issues in the field of economic production. In a…

Joan Martínez AlierJosé Manuel NaredoArticles
Energy, Ecology and Economics

Howard T. Odum was an American ecologist recognized for his pioneering contribution to the study of ecosystems and his integrated approach to ecology, economics and energy. A leading figure in the emergence of ecological economics, we invite here to read his short classic text “Energy, Ecology and Economics”, which, written significantly during the 1973 oil…

Howard T. OdumArticles
La economía en evolución: Invento y configuración de la economía en los siglos XVIII y XIX y sus consecuencias actuales

A leading figure in ecological economics, José Manuel Naredo has written, among other outstanding works, La economía en evolución, a voluminous and erudite work on the development of economic thought, the origin of ecosocial decline and the possibilities of overcoming this degradation. The article we propose to read, with the same title as his book,…

José Manuel NaredoArticles
Ecological Economics, Marxism, and Technological Progress: Some Explorations of the Conceptual Foundations of Theories of Ecologically Unequal Exchange

Professor of human ecology at Lund University, a leading center in this field of study, the Swedish cultural anthropologist Alf Hornborg has contributed some of the most outstanding works on technology in relation to the appropriation of labor and territory from the frameworks of world-systems analysis and unequal exchange between North and South. Among many…

Alf HornborgArticles