In hmolscience, Barkley Rosser (1948-) is an American mathematical economist note, in economic thermodynamics, for his discussion and critique of the use of physics concepts, such as entropy, thermodynamics, chaos theory, complexity theory, in economics.
Of note, Rosser's recent 2008 article “Debating the Role of Econophysics” is a critique of econophysics which contains a rather decent historical section on the use of entropy in economics, including mention of Georg Helm (1887), Leon Winiarski (1900), Alfred Lotka (1925), Harold Davis (1941), Paul Samuelson (1990), among others. Rosser notes, for instance, that French political economist Leon Walras (1874) was deeply influenced by the 1803 work of French physicist Louis Poinsot in the development of his general equilibrium theory. [1]
Interestingly, Rosser is one of the few people to have commented on the 1919 work of the relatively unknown American economist Julius Davidson. [2] Rosser has also commented on the sociophysics work of German physicist Wolfgang Weidlich. [3]
Education
Rosser received a BA in economics with a minor in mathematics in 1969, an MA in economics in 1972, and a Ph.D. in economics in 1976, studying with Eugene Smolensky, all from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Rosser currently is an economics professor at James Madison University.
References
1. (a) Rosser, J.B Jr. (2008). “Debating the Role of Econophysics.” (abs) Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci. Jul; 12(3): 311-23.
(b) Louis Poinsot – Wikipedia.
2. (a) Rosser, John Barkley. (1991). From catastrophe to Chaos: a General Theory of Economic Discontinuities (pg. 268). Kluwer Academics.
(b) Rosser, J. Barkley. (2011). Complex Evolutionary Dynamics in Urban-Regional and Ecological-Economic Systems: from Catastrophe to Chaos and Beyond (Julius Davidson, pgs. 194, 275). Springer.
3. Barkley, Rosser J. (2005). “Book Review of Wolfgang Weidlich’s Sociodynamics: A Systematic Approach to Mathematical Modelling in the Social Sciences” (abs), Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society.
External links
● J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. – Wikipedia.
