Biophysical and Thermodynamic Foundations of Energy Economics: Introducing the novel concept of Econobolism

Biophysical and Thermodynamic Foundations of Energy Economics: Introducing the novel concept of Econobolism | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Biophysical and Thermodynamic Foundations of Energy Economics: Introducing the novel concept of Econobolism Faeze Akbari This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6843399/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 31 Mar, 2026 Read the published version in Energy Efficiency → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This research aims to innovatively examine whether the Kleiber’s law of biophysics and Constructal law of thermodynamics hold in the context of energy economics. To this end, it combines machine learning and econometric methods including k-clustering, Fixed Effects (FE), Random Effects (RE), Generalized Least Squares (GLS), and Driscoll and Kraay (1998) standard errors (SCC). These models analyze the data of 222 countries between 1974 and 2023 to estimate the metabolism rate in the context of energy economics to introduce a novice concept, called “econobolism rate” in this study. The results of the k-clustering method accept the Constructal law of thermodynamics by indicating that countries with large economic size have more energy efficiency, compared to countries with small economic size. Moreover, the results of econometric methods accept the Kleiber’s law by showing that the estimated econobolism rates range within 81% and 85% which are, respectively, 6% and 10% greater than the metabolic rate of the Kleiber’s law, 75%. This result confirms that energy consumption is a sublinear proportion of economic size, which affirms the Kleiber’s law where energy consumption of a biological organism is a proportion of its mass. These findings incorporate biophysics and thermodynamics into energy economics by estimating the econobolic rate, which open new horizons in research on the nexus of energy consumption and economic development. Econobolism Kleiber’s law Energy economics biophysics thermodynamics Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 31 Mar, 2026 Read the published version in Energy Efficiency → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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