One of the major financial market events of the 1980s was the precipitous rise of depository institution failures including banks, savings and loan associations, and credit unions. Not since the 1930s has there been a similar period of turmoil in these industries. The events of the 1980s have...

This paper attempts a systematic examination of the significance of increasing returns for macroeconomic theory. Two main questions are addressed: (i) What are the implications for the construction of macromodels of the assumption of increasing returns? and (ii) What are the implications for the...

The article starts by examining the idea of conservation laws as applied to market economies. It formulates a measure of financial entropy and gives numerical simula-tions indicating that this tends to rise. We discuss an analogue for free energy released during this process. The concepts of...

This paper presents a simulation exercise on Sraffa's system under various types of technical changes to show that the direction of changes in prices of commodities is contingent on the choice of the numeraire. Thus, such a comparison of prices in two systems turns out to be meaningless. This...

The article starts by examining the idea of conservation laws as applied to market economies. It formulates a measure of financial entropy and gives numerical simula-tions indicating that this tends to rise. We discuss an analogue for free energy released during this process. The concepts of...