The Decline of the US Economy: A Perspective from Mathematical Ecology

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Abstract
Nations grow and decline as the result of driving forces underlying the comparative advantage differentials that they enjoy within a community of nations. The US economy, driven by comparative advantages enjoyed in the manufacturing sector, reached in the early 1950s a peak in its share of the world population. In comparison to the market economies of the world (WMEs) the United States of America reached a peak in the ratio of its per-capita gross domestic product to that of the WMEs in around 1920 and a peak in its share of the WMEs population around 1950. On all three counts the United States of America is currently continuously declining. It is hypothesized that this decline is caused by the gradual shift in the US economy from manufacturing to services and that it is of a rather long-term nature. The author presents an economic-ecological based model of the dynamic behavior of the US economy in reference to the WMEs. Empirical evidence, covering the period 1920–1980 is used to test a Volterra-Lotka type model. Some results are discussed in reference to the parameter values, together with their implications in projecting the future course of the US economy within the community of market economies.

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