Juan Sapena

Summary of keynote presentation

In a period of turmoil, economics as a discipline appears sometimes as incapable of providing tools for stabilizing the world’s economic system. The “dismal science”, as labelled by Thomas Carlyle in the nineteenth century, relies on assumptions that, far from just simplifying the frame to isolate the main drivers, are considered to form an “ideal world” not precisely related to reality.
Sustainability can be defined as the ability to maintain a process continuously over time. The economic process involves the production of goods and services to satisfy human needs, typically represented by means of an aggregate production function, that transforms input factors, i.e., labour, natural resources and capital.
The key idea to a sustainable society refers to to whether created- and natural capital can be considered substitutes or complementary goods. Many economists believe we can maintain current consumption and that technological innovation will take care of the needs of future generations. However other economists believe that created capital and natural capital are complementary goods; as we consume more created capital, we will also have to consume more natural capital.
We will review some aspects regarding the potential sources of (un-)sustainability of economic systems and the implications of entropy for this analysis.