Talk:Economic growth

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A news item involving Economic growth was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 8 October 2018.

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The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Macekura, Stephen (2025). "The Growth Concept, Decolonization, and the Global Cold War: A Study of Economic Ideas and Twentieth-Century International History". History of Political Economy. 57 (S1): 111–140. doi:10.1215/00182702-12134430. ISSN 0018-2702.
Vettese, Troy (2023). "Hayek against Malthus: Julian Simon's Neoliberal Critique of Environmentalism". Critical Historical Studies. 10 (2): 283–311. doi:10.1086/726753. ISSN 2326-4462.

Bad physics in the section criticizing endless growth?

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

The section Economic growth#Possibility of infinite economic growth, trying to criticize the idea, doesn't seem to make any sense from a physics perspective. I don't know if this material represents the source poorly, or if the source is misunderstanding physics that badly, or what.

For example: Current economic models ignore physical constraints and thus suggest the economy can grow continuously as a perpetual motion machine. However, according to the laws of thermodynamics, perpetual motion machines do not exist.[188] Thus, no system can continue without inputs of new energy that exit as high entropy waste. Just as no animal can live on its own waste, no economy can recycle the waste it produces without the input of new energy to reproduce itself.[188] And so on. This all seems like a major misunderstanding of thermodynamics, akin to people who claim it disproves evolution. The world is constantly receiving a large supply of energy from the Sun, which even now can be harnessed by renewable energy such as solar power (and wind, as the world's weather is driven by solar energy; etc). Natural ecosystems recycle their waste thanks to the input of low entropy from the Sun, and so could an economy in theory; there is no need for an animal to "live on its own waste".

It's one thing to argue that literally infinite growth isn't possible, but this seems to go way beyond that, and the material here about waste recycling and energy input just seems really confused. I don't think any economist would seriously consider the economy as a perpetual motion machine any more than any other natural system. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:09, 26 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree. There are mainstream sources who have dealt with this issue, which should rather be emphasized. The section should be deleted, and a comment on the discussion of infinite growth possibilities and thermodynamics (ultimately a natural resource constraint) explaining the mainstream view could be inserted into the preceding paragraph on environmental impact. The discussion needs also to point out the distinction between growth in a physical sense and growth in the economic value, which is what GDP growth measures count: Economic growth means not only more goods, but goods of a better quality, too. Økonom (talk) 07:08, 26 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

This sounds good to me. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:11, 26 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I removed it. New material as described above probably wouldn't benefit from using the old material. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Suggest adding: technology and technological infrastructure as a modern growth driver

Latest comment: 5 days ago2 comments1 person in discussion

COI disclosure: I am a co-author on both papers cited below.

The Productivity section covers historical technologies (steam, railroads, highways) but does not mention more modern technology including ICT (information and communications technology) as drivers of economic growth, despite a large empirical literature on this topic. I suggest adding a brief mention in the Productivity section, supported by:

- Lee, S. H., Levendis, J., & Gutierrez, L. (2012). Telecommunications and economic growth: An empirical analysis of sub-Saharan Africa. Applied economics, 44(4), 461-469. Finds that mobile phone expansion contributes to GDP growth, particularly where fixed-line infrastructure is scarce.

- Levendis, J., & Lee, S. H. (2013). On the endogeneity of telecommunications and economic growth: evidence from Asia. Information Technology for Development, 19(1), 62-85. Finds that telecommunications and growth are mutually endogenous across Asian economies.

These two studies cover different regions (sub-Saharan Africa and Asia) and address the endogeneity concern that typically complicates infrastructure-growth estimates. Happy to leave the actual edit to uninvolved editors.

Barky12345 (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Bumping this — happy to hear any thoughts or objections. If there's no concern, I'll go ahead and draft a small addition to the Productivity section.

Barky12345 (talk) 01:03, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply