Prof. Wei-Bin Zhang
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
Title: Uncertainty, Unpredictability, and Economic Structural Change – Insights from Complexity Theory and the General Economic Theory
Abstract:
Applying complexity theory and the general economic theory, the speaker shows an alternative vision to examine structural change, uncertainty, and unpredictability in economic and business evolution. First, I illustrate the importance of the contemporary advances in sciences for understanding complex phenomena of man and society. Then, I illustrate the general economic theory which is composed of a set of mathematical equations that treats all the main economic theories from Adam Smith, Malthus, Karl Marx, and Keynes to the contemporary mainstreams of economic theory within a single comprehensive framework. Finally, I mention how to examine complexity of dynamic interdependence between macroeconomic growth, microeconomic behavior, science, and technology in the light of complexity theory and general socioeconomic theory.
Biography:
Zhang Wei-Bin, Ph.D. (Umeå, Sweden), has been a Professor at APU since 2000. He graduated in 1982 from Beijing University. He got a master’s degree and completed the Ph.D. course at the Department of Civil Engineering, Kyoto University, by September 1987. He completed his dissertation on economic growth theory in Sweden by April 1989. Since then, he researched at the Swedish Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm for 10 years. His main research fields are complexity theory in economics (nonlinear economic dynamics, chaos theory, synergetic economics), ancient Chinese thought, American civilization, and the economic development and modernization of Chinese societies and Japan. He single-authorized 490 academic articles (240 in international peer-reviewed journals), 33 academic books in English by well-known international academic publishing houses available on Amazon, and two books of poetry (in Chinese) by a prominent publisher in the field. He is an editorial board member of 12 peer-reviewed international journals. He was ranked 4th in the world among 69901 registered authors in economics in NJP by January 2025 (the address below). Prof. Zhang is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Models in Economics (in two volumes) as a part of the unprecedented global effort, The Encyclopedias of Life Support Systems, organized by UNESCO (the address below).
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.anbpages.html#pzh151
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