Physioeconomics: The Basis for Long-Run Economic Growth [Hardcover]

Philip M. Parker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 026216194X | ISBN-13: 978-0262161947 | Publication Date: September 18, 2000 | Edition: 1st

According to Philip Parker, the relationship between physics-based physiology and macroeconomics may come to dominate explanations of economic growth. His argument focuses on the so-called equatorial paradox--the phenomenon that a country's latitude explains up to 70 percent of cross-country variances in per capita income. After introducing concepts from physics and physiology as the building blocks of homeostatic utility, he explains the role of homeostatic utility in economic growth. Specifically, he shows that a country's performance is gauged not by its absolute level of income or consumption, but by how far it is from a homeostatic steady state governed by what he calls physioeconomics. Countries closer to their homeostatic steady state grow more slowly than those farther away.Parker shows how factors such as income, aggregate savings, investment, technology, entrepreneurship, production, and outputs per worker are influenced by the more fundamental principles of physics and physiology. He focuses particularly on the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that drives motivation, monitors homeostasis, and ultimately keeps us alive via neural, autonomic, and hormonal adjustments. He presents evidence that long-run growth can be attributed to variances in hypothalmic activity.A physioeconomic approach to growth can lead to better economic policies, measures of performance, and predictions of progress. To take just one example, policymakers would be quicker to realize that food aid to warmer regions can destroy local farming economies that supply adequate caloric needs at a lower steady state.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philip Parker is Professor of Economics and International Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, and at INSEAD, Fontainbleau, France.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st edition (September 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026216194X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262161947
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,965,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes sense to me, September 2, 2004

By 

I. International "Science" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Physioeconomics: The Basis for Long-Run Economic Growth (Hardcover)

Saw this title on a physics wish list and picked it up. The read is certainly not too technical, though drifts a bit in the math. Hardly racist as a reviewer says, but instead makes perfect sense. Irrepsective of race or geography, economics are affected by external factors which must obey the laws of physics. Data that do not consider this may mislabel economies as underdeveloped. I read Guns, Germs and Steel but that book misses the fundamentals driving humans that Parker seems to have caught.

2 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Thinly disguised racism, November 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Physioeconomics: The Basis for Long-Run Economic Growth (Hardcover)

This book is a kind of technical theory of why Northern countries control all the wealth. I would recommend the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" if you want to really examine the subject of civilization.