The Temporal Foundation of Economics（《经济学的时间基础》）

Volume I of the trilogy “Temporal Economics” (《经济学的时间的研究》).

This volume develops the formal foundations of temporal economics. It introduces three core constructs:

• Temporal feasibility — the condition that any economic plan must be realizable within the temporal capacity of the agents and institutions that carry it out;
• Temporal equilibrium — the dynamic state in which the coordination capacity of the system matches the temporal demands placed upon it;
• The shadow cost of time — the price that economic systems implicitly pay when temporal constraints are violated, expressed through breakdowns in coordination, mistiming of decisions, and the erosion of institutional reliability.

By treating time as an endogenous and binding constraint rather than a passive backdrop, the book reframes long-standing problems in economic theory: the limits of optimization under finite coordination capacity, the structural sources of recurrent crises, and the conditions under which economic feasibility can be sustained.

The book is available as open access on Zenodo in both Chinese (original) and English editions. As of May 2026, the volume has accumulated more than 348 downloads.

Open-access editions on Zenodo

• 中文版 (Chinese edition): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19198350

• English edition: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19191382

【中文简介】

本书为《经济学的时间的研究》三卷本第一卷，构建时间经济学的正式理论基础。

本书引入三个核心概念：

时间可行性——任何经济计划必须在承载它的主体与制度的时间能力范围内可实现；

时间均衡——系统协调能力与加诸其上的时间需求动态匹配的状态；

时间的影子成本——当时间约束被违反时，经济系统隐性付出的代价，表现为协调失灵、决策错位与制度可靠性的侵蚀。

将时间作为内生约束而非被动背景，本书重新框定了经济理论中的若干长期问题：有限协调能力下的优化边界、周期性危机的结构根源，以及经济可行性得以持续的条件。

本书中英文版均在 Zenodo 开放获取，截至2026年5月下载量已逾348次。

开放获取版本：

• 中文版：https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19198350
• English edition：https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19191382

Recommended citation: Fei, Chunlu. (2026). The Temporal Foundation of Economics (经济学的时间基础). Volume I of the Temporal Economics Trilogy. Zenodo.
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