Phase transitions associated with economy and demography

Abstract

Crises in social systems are considered by analogy with phase transitions and the corresponding critical phenomena in «non-living» many-particle physical systems. We present two qualitative physical models: (i) a historical and demographic progress as a gradual condensation of economical domains with an improvement of living conditions, and (ii) the modern economical crisis as a result of a spontaneous «condensation» of assets in a free expansion of the U.S. economy in 1990th and 2000th, reducing a control over large business enterprises formed in this process. The first model explains the observed hyperbolic growth of world population in the I-XX centuries A.D. without any additional assumption while the second model points to the analogy between the economic expansion with a drop of competition, and the expansion of gas into vacuum with a drop of temperature.

Keywords

• social systems
• phase transition
• critical phenomena
• crisis
• demography
• economy