Title: The Schumpeterian inner vibratory system

Authors: Sara Casagrande

Addresses: Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento, Via Inama, 5, 38122 Trento, Italy

Abstract: One surprising aspect of the recent economic crisis was the inability of economists to predict it. This failure was caused by several reasons: a short-term economic thinking, the belief that economic dynamics is a constantly growing path disturbed by erratic shocks, and the lack of a social and evolutionary perspective. We start from the thought of Schumpeter and we aim to deepen his unfinished but very fascinating project: the creation of an economic model that is capable of explaining the endogenous and cyclical nature of growth. Schumpeter called this model the inner vibratory system, suggesting that economic dynamics are determined by a biological mechanism that is subject to nonlinearity but which is able to generate an ordered evolution. In this paper we will analyse the main features of a possible inner vibratory system and we will examine its role in the development of models that are able to explain economic crises and embody the concept of long-term sustainable growth.

Keywords: Schumpeter; business cycles; nonlinearity; self-organisation theory; complexity; dissipative systems; cyclical growth; innovations; inventions; capitalism; environmental sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSE.2019.103471

International Journal of Sustainable Economy, 2019 Vol.11 No.4, pp.303 - 323

Received: 12 Jan 2019
Accepted: 15 Apr 2019
Published online: 06 Nov 2019 *

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