My book The Physical Foundation of Economics: An Analytical Thermodynamic Theory and other works have received some very positive reviews and comments.

A review from Raluca Ioana Iorgulescu and John M. Polimeni is published in Ecological Economics. The following is the first paragraph of the review:

The Physical Foundation of Economics: An Analytical Thermodynamic Theory by Jing Chen is an important reference book for those interested in the biophysical foundations of ecological economics. In the struggle to build the edifice of an entropy-based economic theory, Jing Chen establishes a solid foundation. He develops a thermodynamic theory of conscious beings to explain economic and social phenomena. The book takes the reader on an entropic journey beginning with the human mind; following it in the valuation process, in productive activities facing competition, in creating institutions, in developing technologies to use natural resources, in trading, and migrating, finally reaching an apex in the financial world. (The entire review)

From Georgist community, a review from Bill Batt is published in GroundSwell. The following is the first paragraph of the review:

Books with sweeping scope present challenges to a reader, and even more to reviewers, but they are the ones that often push discourse to new levels. Professor Jing Chen has written a short book – only about 125 pages – that attempts to integrate physics, biology, economics, information science, and still other fields as they may relate, into a grand theory. If his effort is only suggestive and not conclusive, it is only because much more empirical work is necessary to demonstrate the validity of his constructs. (The entire review)

John Matlock, one of the top ten reviewers from Amazon.com wrote the following review:

This is an extremely interesting book that attempts to provide an entirely new foundation for economic theory. It is easy to see why the author says in the preface that he has had a hard time remaining employed (he is now an assistant professor at the University of Northern British Columbia).

His basic idea is that there are rules based on thermodynamic processes that underly economic theories. This leads him to some very interesting observations. For instance agriculture produces more grain than does gathering. But the costs of producing that grain, preparing the fields, planting, harvesting, storing are much higher. The resulting stored grain is something that is worth stealing by an outsider, so a military is necessary. Or another comment on how open trade (NAFTA) affects the industrial and the rural countries.

This is a book that professional economists are going to treat with complete disdain. It may turn out to be a theory that gets thrown away, or it could be a Nobel winner sometime in the future. At any rate, it is a fascinating read that helps me, (not an economist) make a little more sense out of the world.

From European Business Forum

Economics and thermodynamics

Ernst Schrodinger argued that all human activities, including mental activities, are governed by physical laws and are essentially thermodynamic processes. In his book, The Physical Foundation of Economics, Professor Jing Chen of the University of Northern British Columbia goes one step further and attempts to develop an analytical theory of economics based on thermodynamic laws. Chen argues that his work provides “a much more realistic and intuitive understanding of economic and social phenomena than neoclassical economics”. Thermodynamic theory has the great advantage of taking imperfections and external volatility into account as part of the economic system, rather than dismissing them as “abnormalities”.

Chen’s thermodynamic theory appears to be a powerful one and worth considering. He also manages to explain it in a simple and ordinary way; today’s economics texts are replete with complex equations, but the mathematical data here is easy to follow. The big question is: will this theory catch on? Chen acknowledges the danger in his preface where he quotes Joseph Schumpeter: “Static theory is much easier to work out; its propositions are easier to prove and it seems closer to (logical) essentials.” The best theories do not always win.

Richard West, a former student of mine, wrote the following short review on Amazon.com

Best New Idea in Economics in Years, April 8, 2006

Reviewer:

Richard J. West - See all my reviews

Before I begin this review, let me just say that I was a student of Jing Chen so there will naturally be some bias here, but I will try to be fare.

This book presents a theory that bridges the well ordered world of physics and the chaotic world of economics. It goes a long way in explaining why the world of human structures and systems are the way they are and suggests that, perhaps, the world is not as unpredictable, chaotic or complex as the dismal science would have us believe. This book contains a fundamental idea that leaves readers thinking, "that's so simple and obvious, I could of thought of that".

Unfortunately the book does suffer from being too complex for a wide audience. Some people will be intimidated by the mathematics involved, but if you can get past the math this book is very worthwhile. A "dumbed down" version would be nice to see so this profound idea could be brought to a wider audience.

An introduction of my works by Libb Thims in his Human Thermodynamics website. The first paragraph:

In economic thermodynamics, Jing Chen is a Chinese-born, Canadian mathematician and thermodynamic economist noted for his publications in the field of thermoeconomics, in particular his views on entropy and its relation to areas such as sexual selection and the economic process. Chen began his research on the connection between thermodynamics and economics in the early 2000s. [1] His first book on this topic was the 2005 The Physical Foundation of Economics - an Analytical Thermodynamic Theory. [2] One of the more interesting points of Chen’s theories is his ideas on natural selection. In particular, Chen argues that the struggle to stay in low-entropy states is called natural selection. [7]

A paper by Max Seel, which is titled Children as in-the-money Options: An Application of Jing Chen’s Thermodynamic Theory

The beginning of the paper:

As we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience, every once in awhile we have these integrations in which everything is pulled together, a unification which in turn, turns out to be simpler than it looked before

Richard Feynman, 1981 BBC Interview

Introduction

In my first chemistry class I remember being struck by the second law of Thermodynamics, which basically states that entropy always increases. To sit back and think that we live in a world where there can never truly be a completely stable system; that there is always unused potential slipping away. Finance has been a field that seemed to embrace this same thinking. Rarely do we find ourselves in long periods of market stability and because of the potential for large profits and for large losses, continuous attempts have been made to better price market instruments. It seems that the fundamentals behind this strategy are to maintain a low entropy system. As we move beyond the field of finance we find similar missions, in fields such as biology, economics, psychology, however rarely do we find the same rigor in dealing with the physical constraint of entropy. It should be possible to apply models used in finance to tackle broader issues such as human overpopulation, education, and corporate strategy. The hopes of this paper are to first, introduce Jing Chen’s Thermodynamic Theory that attacks multiple mainstream theories using real options and their analytical workhorse the Black‐Scholes model, second, attempt to apply this thinking with a model that assesses the option value of having children, and finally conclude with a discussion of these results and implications.

A twenty page comment from Lyndon LaRouche on A Biophysical Approach to Production Theory coauthored with James Galbraith. The first paragraph of the comment:

I include the title of Professor James K. Galbraith’s“A Biophysical Approach to Production Theory” as part of my characterization of that piece’s role as a significant, timely step upward in treatment of the subject of political economy among today’s shrinking minority of actually competent professionals in this field. His argument represents an important breakthrough, although it does not yet touch the more challenging domain on which I have focused in two relevant pieces on the crucially relevant subject of my Kiev Podolynsky paper,“The Principle of Mind,”and the more recent reflection of the implications of that former paper, in “A New World Currency As Fraud.”

Detailed remarks from Eleftherios Gkioulekas on A Biophysical Approach to Production Theory coauthored with James Galbraith. The first paragraph of the remarks:

In this very brief note, I would like to make a few remarks on the working paper by Chen and Galbraith [1]. The purpose of the paper is to formulate a theory of economic production by taking a high vantage point of formulating principles that are applicable not only to economics but other areas as well such as biology and sociology. As such, what the paper proposes are principles that are intended to be universally applicable to a broad spectrum of complex systems. I will confine my remarks here to two issues.