Disequilibrium economics

Abstract

The analogies between economic systems and thermodynamic systems are both obvious and misleading. Even if important thermodynamic notions lack of counterparts in Economics, the transference of formal devices became a feasible goal. Procedures like comparative statics were imported directly from thermodynamics, making possible to relate equilibria in economic systems to properties of their environments. Continuing that tradition we claim that it would be good for Economics to borrow formalisms from Open Systems Theory, the not yet well defined set of extensions of Thermodynamics to the analysis of open systems. In this paper we discuss briefly the epistemological rationale for this claim and present two models that cannot be analyzed in classical terms as to show how the tools of O.S.T. can be applied.