On the Normalization of Dimensioned Variables

We attempt to resolve the central dispute in recent debates on dimensional consistency of economic and ecological variables in ecological economics (Mayumi and Giampietro, 2010; Malghan, 2011; Chilarescu and Viasu, 2012; Baiocchi, 2012). Using canonical examples from ecology and economics, we demonstrate that the well-established procedures of normalization and nondimensionalization can be used to circumvent the technical problem of dimensional consistency of ecological economics models. However, we also show how normalization does not directly address the problem of mapping between cardinal and ordinal variables that is the primary source of dimensional consistency problems in ecological economics