
How Should We Use Entropy in Economics? (1991) [pdf] - poindontcare
http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/entropy.in.economics.pdf
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baristaGeek
> Presumably, a process of trial and error will be needed to find the right
> choices

This is a huge difference between macroeconomics and thermodynamics. You can't
just have a control group of people, test a policy with them and say 'omg they
died of starvation'. I know well designed experiments exist such as basic
income, but I hope I made a point: You can't just test macro policies as you
would test heat transfer in a lab.

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sit12
maybe you can model or simulate somehow?

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ravar
My first reaction is that there is no reason to use entropy. In physics you
can prove that Hamiltonian motion leads to ergodic behavior and that creates
the push to higher entropy. In an economic system I question that ergodicity
would be satisfied. So similarly I doubt that there is inherent reason to
expect entropy to increase or even be a useful metric on the system.

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nerdponx
I think in a lot of economic systems we're still a long way off from reasoning
at all about long run behavior, let alone formally deriving it. Hence the urge
to try and steal modeling concepts from other fields, with or without
theoretical foundations.

That said, I have very shaky intuition about how physicists actually use these
concepts. Is egodicity necessary or just sufficient for rising entropy?

