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Conservation laws, financial entropy and the eurozone crisis

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  • Cockshott, Paul
  • Zachariah, David

Abstract

The article attempts of apply econophysics concepts to the Eurozone crisis. It starts by examining the idea of conservation laws as applied to market economies. It formulates a measure of financial entropy and gives numerical simulations indicating that this tends to rise. We discuss an analogue for free energy released during this process. The concepts of real and symbolic appropriation are introduced as a means to analyse debt and taxation. We then examine the conflict between the conservation laws that apply to commodity exchange with the exponential growth implied by capital accumulation and how these have necessitated a sequence of evolutionary forms for money, and go on to present a simple stochastic model for the formation of rates of interest and a model for the time evolution of the rate of profit. Finally we apply the conservation law model to examining the Euro Crisis and the European Stability pact, arguing that if the laws we hypothesise actually hold, then the goals of the stability pact are unobtainable.

Suggested Citation

  • Cockshott, Paul & Zachariah, David, 2013. "Conservation laws, financial entropy and the eurozone crisis," Economics Discussion Papers 2013-36, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201336
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    entropy; conservation-law; financial crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

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