The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

Post by elil17 » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

gravitas wrote: post #4

jagged-chisel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without having read anything but your comment: The economic impact to the attendant ('observer travelling with the goods') is not diminished by his own experience of the passage of time, but is affected by the reduction in his own ability to take on other tasks during the same [external] time frame. In other words, it doesn't matter that he experienced the travel as five minutes. What matters is that his options were…

Without having read anything but your comment: What about the actual vs. perceived wear and tear on the ships(?) transporting the goods, do they experience 5 days worth of repair/upkeep (fuel?) needs, or 5 minutes? Maintaining the transport (vehicle, ransible, teleporter, whatever) has some sort of cost - TANSTAAFL.

Post by cdogl » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

jointpdf wrote: post #12

cdogl wrote: post #10

Cool paper. I dig the premise. But this passage from the introduction left an eyebrow raised: > [Recent progress raises] the distinct possibility that we may eventually discover or construct a world to which orthodox economic theory applies. This really strains credulity for me. Whatever you think of various heterodox economic theories, their objections tend to come boil to some combination of: class analysis; "human…

Krugman was being sardonic here, along the lines of “assume a spherical cow”. The whole introduction is dripping with sarcasm. The paper was partially intended as a satire.

Post by baxtr » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #14

messe wrote: post #2

Abstract: > This paper extends interplanetary trade to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: How should interest on goods in tranist be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theo…

I'm trying to imagine a physical product that is worth transporting on an interstellar level, rather than locally manufactured. It seems to me that the only thing that would ever be exchanged between solar systems, would be information.

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #5

The article was written in 1978 but it references paper: Krugman, P.,"Theory Capital and Travel Light-than-Faster", prosessed, Yale University, 1987 (The writer also received a Nobel for his contributions to the theory of international trade and economic geography).

Post by SeanLuke » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #14

messe wrote: post #2

Abstract: > This paper extends interplanetary trade to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: How should interest on goods in tranist be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theo…

I'm trying to imagine a physical product that is worth transporting on an interstellar level, rather than locally manufactured. It seems to me that the only thing that would ever be exchanged between solar systems, would be information.