Frederic Jennings Jr. - Planning horizons as an ordinal entropic measure of organization

jpe:10695 - Journal of Philosophical Economics, November 18, 2016, Volume X Issue 1 - https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10695
Planning horizons as an ordinal entropic measure of organizationArticle

Authors: Frederic Jennings Jr. 1

  • 1 Center for Ecological Economic and Ethical Education

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) educated economists on the notion of entropy laws in economics and ecological process. An earlier paper by Kenneth E. Boulding (1962) asked what we might do with a measure of organizational entropy, were one ever devised. The aim of this paper is to propose the notion of planning horizons as a candidate for this role. First, the concept of organizational entropy is discussed and defined within the interdependent domain of ecological economics. Next, the character and contributions of an entropic measure of organization are reviewed, as described in Boulding’s work. Third, the concept of planning horizons – and their relation to economic cohesion, efficiency and well-being – is introduced to show how ‘horizon effects’ (shifts in planning horizons) serve as an ordinal entropic measure of organization in dynamic complex settings of interdependent effects. Last, the promise of planning horizons as a new social research program in ecological economics shall be discussed.


Volume: Volume X Issue 1
Section: Articles
Published on: November 18, 2016
Imported on: December 28, 2022
Keywords: ecology,economics,entropy,organization,planning horizons,horizon effects,ordinal measure,[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences

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