Sunspot theory

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The sunspot theory was developed in the 19th century by the economist William Stanley Jevons . It is an outdated business cycle theory , which - based on an apparent correlation between the number of sunspots and the economic situation - should explain economic fluctuations through a presumed influence of solar activity on the weather , thus indirectly on agriculture and on economic development as a whole. The possible existence of such an influence was not implausible in heavily agricultural countries . The sunspot theory is characterized by the fact that it has business cyclestried to explain monocausal through an exogenous, i.e. extra-economic, factor.

Jevons' approach to explanation

The astronomer Wilhelm Herschel (1738–1822) pursued the idea of quantitatively investigating a presumed connection between sunspots and the earth's climate using wheat prices as a climate proxy . He found a connection, which is not significant by today's statistical standards, and suggested that the absence of sunspots indicates “a deficit in the sun's rays”. Herschel's analysis was taken up by a number of scholars in the 19th century.

In the 19th century, starting with Jevons, economics started out as a system of equilibrium . Larger economic fluctuations, which did occur nevertheless, could hardly be reconciled with this idea - unless it was about exogenous disturbances of the equilibrium outside the economy. Jevons, who was passionate about meteorology, noted that the number of sunspots observed was subject to periodic fluctuations similar to that of the economy. Jevons tried to derive a causal relationship between the two sizes: more sunspots would darken the sun, which would lead to a deterioration in the weather, the resulting falling grain harvest would lead to higher prices, which in turn would be observed on the stock market and worsened the mood there, which in turn, would adversely affect the economic situation. When the apparent correlation between sunspots and the economy in England was not confirmed in the following years, Jevons kept looking for new causal chains. But none of them proved to be tenable, and his search for a connection was ultimately unsuccessful.

Jevons' unwavering endeavors were mocked at the end of the 19th century. The English astronomer Richard Anthony Proctor wrote in 1880 of a “sunspot mania” and saw Jevons as “naive” and a “true cycle hunter”.

Term sunspots today

In the English-speaking world today, the term sunspots refers to possible extrinsic uncertainties ( → see also random variables ).

In business theory, sunspots is any phenomenon that, although it has no real impact on the economy, is believed by many economic subjects to have an impact. In the expectation of the influence, they adapt their behavior to changes in the phenomenon in such a way that the expected influences occur indirectly. This can encourage economic agents to believe that the phenomenon has a real impact.

literature

  • William Stanley Jevons: Influence of the Sun-Spot Period on the Price of Corn , 1875.
  • William Stanley Jevons: Commercial crises and sun-spots . In: Nature xix, November 14, 1878, pp. 33-37.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jeffrey J. Love: On the insignificance of Herschel's sunspot correlation . In: Geophysical Research Letters . August 2013, doi : 10.1002 / grl.50846 (open access).
  2. ↑ Note: In fact, more sunspots are an indication of a higher radiation output from the sun, so they would have rather indicated a slight warming of the earth, see solar activity .
  3. ↑ Urs Stäheli: The observation of economic disturbances . In: Lars Koch, Christer Petersen and Joseph Vogl (eds.): ZfK - Journal for Cultural Studies: Störfalls . No. 2 , 2011, ISBN 978-3-8376-1856-3 .
  4. ^ Richard Anthony Proctor: Sun-Spots and Financial Panics . In: Scribner's Monthly . tape 20 , no. June 2 , 1880, p. 170–178, here: 171 .
  5. ^ David Cass , Karl Shell : Do Sunspots Matter? In: Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 91, No. 2, April 1983, pp. 193-227. (online: PDF; 35 p., 2.9 MB)
  6. ↑ Gustav A. Horn : sunspots. In: Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon. Springer Gabler Verlag, accessed on June 3, 2016 (Version 5).