How Wages are Linked to Energy Consumption: Data and Theory
By Carey W. King, Carey King blog
How do economic analyses account for the roles and impacts of both the cost and quantity of natural resource consumption? This question has been debated perhaps as long as there has been the profession of economics. Before the use of fossil fuels, early “classical” economists knew that most products of interest, such as food and building materials, came from the land as it harnesses the energy from the sun. Thus, land as a natural resource was front-and-center to economic thinking.
Artificial Intelligence and the Utility Monster: It’s the Economy Stupid
By Carey W. King, Carey King blog
Thus, we should consider whether the superintelligent AI future some fear might already in action, but at perhaps a slower and more subtle pace than some pontificate might happen after “the singularity” when AI becomes more capable than humans.
Delusions of Grandeur in Building a Low-Carbon Future
By Carey W. King, Earth Magazine
There is a very real trade-off between the rate at which we address climate change and the amount of economic growth we can expect during the transition to a low-carbon economy, but most economic models insufficiently address this trade-off, and thus are incapable of assessing the transition.
Macroscale Modeling Linking Energy and Debt
By Carey W. King, Resilience.org
As we attempt to understand newer and more numerous options (e.g., electric cars, renewables, information) regarding energy system evolution, it is paramount to have internally consistent macro-scale models that take a systems approach that tracks flows and interdependencies among debt, employment, profits, wages, and biophysical quantities (e.g., natural resources and population).
The Most Important and Misleading Assumption in the World
By Carey W. King, Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation blog
Why should we make policy using economic models that don’t reflect what should be obvious to a third-grader?
Macro and Climate Economics: It’s Time to Talk about the “Elephant in the Room”
By Carey W. King, Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation blog
Economic growth...in macroeconomic models is the so-called elephant in the room that, unfortunately, almost no one talks about or seeks to improve.