Temporal Feasibility and the Limits of Resource-Based Economics

This paper introduces temporal feasibility as a binding constraint on economic systems and uses it to delineate the structural limits of resource-based economics. The dominant tradition in economic analysis treats resources — material, labor, capital, information — as the primary axis of scarcity. This paper argues that resource scarcity alone is an incomplete framing: economic systems are also constrained by the temporal capacity to coordinate, allocate, and adjust, and this temporal capacity is often the more binding constraint.

The paper develops three claims:

• Time is an irreducible economic resource. It cannot be substituted, accumulated, or transferred in the same way as material resources, and its scarcity has distinct economic consequences.
• Coordination has a temporal cost. Every reallocation of resources requires time to negotiate, decide, transmit, and implement; when the available time is shorter than this cost, the reallocation becomes infeasible regardless of whether the resources themselves exist.
• Resource-based economics has a temporal blind spot. Standard models implicitly assume that adjustment is fast relative to the underlying dynamics. When this assumption fails — as it increasingly does under high-frequency conditions — the predictive and normative claims of resource-based economics become unreliable.

The paper argues that incorporating temporal feasibility is not a minor extension of existing theory but a structural revision. It connects the analysis to the broader research program on temporal economics, of which this paper is a foundational component.

Read the full paper on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6744038

【中文简介】

本文提出”时间可行性”作为约束经济系统的内生条件，以此划定资源基础经济学的结构性边界。标准经济分析将资源稀缺视为首要约束，本文则指出：协调、配置与调整的时间能力同样是根本性约束——且往往更具决定性——而资源基础框架对此系统性地认识不足。

本文提出三个核心命题：时间是不可替代的经济资源；协调本身具有时间成本；资源经济学存在内在的”时间盲点”。

完整版（英文）请见 SSRN： https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6744038

Recommended citation: Fei, Chunlu. (2026). "Temporal Feasibility and the Limits of Resource-Based Economics." SSRN Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6744038
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