Paul Krugman* July 1978

*Assistant Professor, Yale University. This research was supported by a grant from the Committee to Re-Elect William Proxmire.

This is about interest charges which is faily boring, but the book Critical Mass has some interesting comments on economics of materials in translunar space. Compared to materials on Earth, the value of materials (e.g. for construction) is entirely dependent on their position (and orbit). 100 tons of packed lunar regolith is worthless on the lunar surface, but would be highly valuable in a medium earth orbit where it could be used to construct quite a large hull via chemical vapor deposition.

oh great, space interest

An interesting science fiction book is Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross. A major structural core of the book is how different colonies trade and the finance models across interstellar distances.

How does a colony finance the initial voyage and investment. It raises the concept of slow money ( 1 slow dollar is the economic output of a professional people for 40 years irc) and fast money for day to day use.