Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/27195 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Diskussionsbeitrag No. 385
Publisher: 
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Hannover
Abstract: 
The natural sciences have established a general scaling law that relates metabolism and body size of animals. Recently this association - known as Kleiber's law - has received deep theoretical foundation by network theory and has been fruitfully applied to explain various biological phenomena, in particular ontogenetic growth. Here we derive a similar power law for economic metabolism (energy consumption per capita) and economic size (capital per capita). Invoking the power law we provide a metabolic-energetic founded law of motion for capital per capita. Using data for the U.S. states we test the resulting structural model and find evidence in favor of a scaling parameter, between energy and capital per capita, of about 2/3.
Subjects: 
Economic Growth
Energy
Metabolism
Power Laws
Networks
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
183.93 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.