Introduction: The biophysical perspective

In this theme, the economy is presented as a so-called metabolic organism, i.e an organism with a metabolism. This focuses on the economy in a biophysical perspective, which makes an important contribution to the understanding of the economy and economic theory. When one looks at the economy as a metabolic organism, the focus is on all the materials, the energy and land required to maintain the economy. This means that the size of the economy comes into focus. It has been shown that there is a clear connection between the size of the economy and the amount of raw materials, energy and land the economy needs to keep going. In order to get a better sense of the size of the economy in a biophysical sense, different measures have been developed to help us get a picture of the economy’s overall metabolism. As well as presenting the economy in a biophysical perspective, we also briefly describe some of the most widely used measures of the size of the economy in a biophysical sense.

Next: A metabolic organism