Analysis of Economic Cycles in Kondratieff’s Long Cycle Theory and in Bejan’s Constructal Theory

Abstract

Academic discourse has recently seen an increase in its attention to the emergence of a new crisis. As usual, every well-known economist, university professor and researcher attempts to make theoretical or practical arguments about how a hypothetical crisis unfolds and to identify its possible underlying causes. The desire for notoriety pushes economists to random expectations. Slightly panic-stricken, economists adept at different theoretical approaches to business cycles predict a bleak future. Several schools of economic thought have provided different explanations for crises and economic cycles (at a first count, there are about 12 more significant ones and 2-3 more secondary ones); to which we may add the explanations of historians, sociologists, etc. In economics textbooks, four names appear more frequently in the chapters on economic cycles: Kitchin, Juglar, Kuznetz and Kondratieff; and there are often explanations of cycles in the Keynesian line of thinking. Usually, the focus of the textbooks falls on Nikolai Kondratieff’s long cycles. Although the eponymous economist did not give clear explanations as to the causes of cycle production and their identification is empirical, his followers have identified this type of cycle for more than 1000 years. It therefore cannot be a mere coincidence. The question is: can we bring something new to this field? We think so. And we believe that we can explain the issues that have escaped Kondratieff, we can especially identify the causes of long cycles. How do we propose to accomplish this? The answer lies in using Professor Adrian Bejan’s Constructal Theory. This theory speaks of the economy in terms of flow systems: systems that evolve and grow to facilitate the flow as well as decrease the resistances and spread them evenly throughout the systems involved.