The Theory of Interstellar Trade

[marsden_online]

Yoinked from an issue of Roleplaying Tips Weekly while I was cleaning out (one of) my (many) inbox(s).

This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved."

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf

Comments

[mr-orgue.livejournal.com]

Best thing about that paper is its by Paul Krugman, hugely respected (and controversially anti-Bush) economist on the world stage.

:-)