Barangay IRAWAN Systems Model

A simple model of economic growth where a government taxes the economy, and spends it on capital and revenue goods.

Like previous models, this model shows the operation of a simple economy, the influence of changes in the consumption rate, and the effect of government intervention. In addition, this model shows changes in the hypothetical general price level. It gives an idea of changes in price trends based on changes in the quantity of money. NOTE: No general price level exists. Prices provide information for the exchange of individual economic goods.

The statement that there can be no economic activity without  energy and that fossil fuels are finite contrasts with the fact that money is not finite and can be created by governments via their central banks at zero marginal cost whenever needed.

An important fact about COAL, GAS and OIL (especially when produced via fracking) is that their net energy ratios are falling rapidly. In other words the energy needed to extract a given quantity of fossil fuels is constantly increasing. The falling ratio 'EROI' (Energy Return on Energy Invested ) provides yet another warning that we can no longer rely on fossil fuels to power our economies. In 1940 it took the energy of only one barrel of oil to extract 100. Today the energy of 1 barrel of oil will yield only 15. We cannot wait until the ratio falls to 1/1 before we invest seriously in alternative sources of energy, because by then industrial society as we know it doday will have ceased to exist. An EROI of 1:1 means that it takes the energy of one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil - oil production would simply stop! 

Ocean/atmosphere/biosphere model tuned for interactive economics-based simulations from Y2k on.

Ocean/atmosphere/biosphere model tuned for interactive economics-based simulations from Y2k on.

Book summary of Albert O Hirschman's 1982 book, explaining cycles of collective public action.

An initial study of the economics of single use coffee pods.

Butterfly Effect
Sensitivity To Initial Conditions
(sensitive dependence on initial conditions)
Navier Stokes Equations
Lorenz Attractor
Chaos Theory, Disorder and Entropy



If M is the state space for the map , then  displays sensitive dependence to initial conditions if for any x in M and any δ > 0, there are y in M, with  such that

Spending by the government creates its own 'financial resource' as the process of crediting an account in the private sector takes place. This may sound like nonsense, but in fact it is 'monetary reality'. This premise is supported by Bell (1998; 2000) and Wray (1998a) who argue that the Treasury does not need to collect or borrow funds in order to spend, but crates new funds as it spends.

Perhaps the following thought experiment  helps to understand how this is possible.  

If you imagine two drawers, each representing an account. The first drawer contains 100 gold coins and the second is empty. Also imagine that there are no other gold coins available at this time. Let's call the first drawer account A and the second account B. Now if you want to transfer 30 gold coins from account A to account B, you would actually first have to take the coins out of drawer A and then place them into drawer B. Account A will then necessarily have 30 coins less in it. Now imagine accounts A and B are held in a computer as electronic money. Instead of 100 gold coins, account A only contains the computer generated number '100'  and account B shows '0'. To get account B to show a balance of '30', it would now simple be necessary to change the '0' to '30' on the computer. The need to raid account A and to take '30' from the number '100' before you could credit  account B does not exist. Money is created as it is entered in B's account irrespective of whether A's account is debited before or after this process or not at

IM-168155 Summary of Ch 27 of Mitchell Wray and Watts Textbook see IM-164967 for book overview with simplified Mike Radzicki's 2003 Evolutionary Economics history article added

Launch page for Macroeconomics Textbook 2019 by Mitchell, Wray and Watts. There is also a book companion site

To maintain economic wealth (roads, hospitals, power lines, etc.) power needs to be consumed. The same applies to economic activity, since any activity requires the consumption of energy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the burning of fossil fuels was responsible for 79 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. So whilst economic activity takes place fossil fuels will be burned and CO2 emissions are unavoidable - unless we use exclusively renewable energy resources, which is not likely to occur very soon. However, the increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will have negative consequences, such droughts, floods, crop failures, etc. These effects represent limits to economic growth. The CLD illustrates some of the more prominent negative feedback loops that act as a break on economic growth and wealth.  As the negative feedback loops (B1-B4) get stronger, an interesting question is, 'will a sharp reduction in economic wealth and unavoidable recession lead to wide-spread food riots and disturbances?'

Calculating EOQ using classical inventory model

Goodwin business cycle model, modified from Keen and Blatt

The World3 model is a detailed simulation of human population growth from 1900 into the future. It includes many environmental and demographic factors.

Use the sliders to experiment with the initial amount of non-renewable resources to see how these affect the simulation. Does increasing the amount of non-renewable resources (which could occur through the development of better exploration technologies) improve our future? Also, experiment with the start date of a more environmentally focused policy.