eprintid: 10195495
rev_number: 7
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/19/54/95
datestamp: 2024-08-07 08:48:57
lastmod: 2024-08-07 08:48:57
status_changed: 2024-08-07 08:48:57
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: Coffman, D'Maris
creators_name: Scazzieri, Roberto
title: A Reappraisal of Albert Aftalion’s Theory of Structural Transformation in an Era of Decarbonization
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B04
divisions: C04
keywords: growth regimes, decarbonization, intersectoral
interdependencies, structural economic change, history of
economic thought, Albert Aftalion
note: Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© 2024 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
abstract: Decarbonization is a momentous challenge for capitalism and makes one to ask which changes in its morphology may be necessary to achieve that objective. The contribution by the French economist Albert Aftalion (1874–1956), with its emphasis on intermediate levels of aggregation (the “meso“ approach), the differentiated time profiles of economic actoivities, and their differential speeds of reaction to dynamic impulses, provides an invaluable heuristic for conceptualizing the structural transformations required by transition to a low energy regime. Aftalion’s analysis of industrial capitalism emphasizes that structural changes occur along multiple co-existing time horizons. This provides tools to analyze the time constraints on the sequencing of structural changes for different sectors on a decarbonization trajectory without neglecting the strict time requirements for implementing effective climate change mitigation. This interplay of time horizons is central to decarbonization, and it will require a new balance between the invisible hand of markets and the visible hand of states and other public bodies. Moreover, Aftalion’s emphasis on material constraints offers a novel approach to conceptualizing the importance of intermediate levels of aggregation in economic theory, thereby offering a new basis for sectoral policymaking and a fundamental challenge to institutionalist accounts of the morphology of capitalism.
date: 2024
date_type: published
publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007680524000205
oa_status: green
full_text_type: pub
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2303066
doi: 10.1017/s0007680524000205
lyricists_name: Coffman, D'Maris
lyricists_id: DCOFF28
actors_name: Coffman, D'Maris
actors_id: DCOFF28
actors_role: owner
full_text_status: public
publication: Business History Review
volume: 98
number: 1
pagerange: 237-257
issn: 0007-6805
citation:        Coffman, D'Maris;    Scazzieri, Roberto;      (2024)    A Reappraisal of Albert Aftalion’s Theory of Structural Transformation in an Era of Decarbonization.                   Business History Review , 98  (1)   pp. 237-257.    10.1017/s0007680524000205 <https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007680524000205>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195495/1/a-reappraisal-of-albert-aftalions-theory-of-structural-transformation-in-an-era-of-decarbonization.pdf