Reiner Kümmel

Reiner Kümmel (born 9 July 1939 in Fulda
Scientific career
Reiner Kümmel studied physics and mathematics at TH Darmstadt from 1959 to 1964. He received a scholarship from the Cusanuswerk and completed his doctorate on superconductivity at Frankfurt University in 1968, where he also habilitated in theoretical physics in 1973. During his doctorate and habilitation, he also conducted research abroad, such as from 1965 to 1967 as a research assistant under the two-time Nobel Prize winner in physics John Bardeen at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1970 to 1972, he worked in Colombia at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, His research in physics focussed on the theory of inhomogeneous superconductors and mesoscopic heterocontacts. His economic interests focussed on energy use and emission reduction. From 1996 to 1998, Reiner Kümmel chaired the Energy Working Group of the German Physical Society. He retired in October 2004. Nevertheless, he remained associated with the university with a teaching assignment for the lecture Thermodynamics and Economics until the summer semester 2015. He is a member of the editoral board of Biophysical Economics and Sustainability.
Work
Kümmel's work on economics intends to improve the mathematical structure of macroeconomic growth models, so that they don't contradict the findings of applied physics, in particular the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Also he identified energy as a powerful factor of production and the dominant component of technological progress. To address these issues amongst others, he developed the so called LINEX function, which depends linearly on energy and exponentially on quotients of capital, labor, and energy.
The LINEX production function, that satisfies the Euler condition (constant returns), is constructed through partial integration of simple mathematical forms for the three marginal productivities of capital, labour and energy, based on plausible assumptions about asymptotic behavior. The LINEX function does not imply (as does the Cobb-Douglas function) that the three factors are all strict substitutes for each other in the sense that more of one factor implies less of the other, or conversely. On the contrary, it implies a more complex and more realistic physical substitution-complement relationship among the variables. The function does not rely on the "cost-share theorem" applied in standard economic theory, that assumes the marginal productivity of capital, labour and energy are equal to their cost-share in the national accounts, which implies that capital and labour are the main factors of production. The parameters of the function are fitted using statistical methods and non-constant (time dependent) marginal productivities of capital, labour and energy can be generated from the fit. Kümmel, and collegue Dietmar Lindenberger first fit the LINEX function using electricity as a proxy for the useful work from energy inputs. Consequently, so called technological progress in neoclassical models can be explained, in large part, as the ability of mankind to integrate increasing energy flows into the economic process and to transform it with high efficiency into useful work. It then follows that energy's economic weight is much larger than it's cost share, and that energy is a powerful factor of production and a dominant component of "technological progress". As Kümmel states "we owe a substantial part of our material wealth to energy conversion in the machines of the capital stock".
In his book The Second Law of Economics, he discusses the influence of energy conservation and entropy on prosperity and adds to the production theory of economics the important scientific component of energy, without which a modern economy cannot be understood. He calls for energy taxes to alleviate the pressure to grow, based on the much higher production elasticity of energy than labour.
Publications
* Reiner Kümmel, Dietmar Lindenberger: Energy, Entropy, Constraints, and Creativity in Economic Growth and Crises. In: Entropy. Band 22, Nr. 10, 14. Oktober 2020, ISSN 1099-4300, 1156.
* Reiner Kümmel, Dietmar Lindenberger, Florian Weiser: The economic power of energy and the need to integrate it with energy policy. In: Energy Policy 86 (2015), 833-843.
* Reiner Kümmel, Dietmar Lindenberger: How energy conversion drives economic growth far from the equilibrium of neoclassical economics. In: New Journal of Physics 16, Dec. 2014, 125008.
* Reiner Kümmel: Why energy's economic weight is much larger than its cost share In: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 9, Dec. 2013.
* Reiner Kümmel: . Springer, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-1-4419-9364-9.
* Reiner Kümmel, Robert U. Ayres, Dietmar Lindenberger: . In: Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2010, pp. 145-179.
* Arne Jacobs, Reiner Kümmel: Dynamics of conversion of supercurrents into normal currents and vice versa. In: Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 64, No. 10, 2001.

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