To really compare to an economic price signal, it should be a resource transfer from one actor to another—the price “paid” by a buyer is equal to the amount “received” by the buyer. I don’t see this for most physiological processes—they are signals, but more like feedback loop and control theory signals than they are price signals. There _are_ symbiosis/parasite cases that are closer to a price system, where one organism gives up something to another, in exchange for future benefits.
That’s not necessary for all results. It would be relevant to some—e.g. monetary economics (obviously), budgets constraints, and anything where the role of money as an incentive is crucial. But it’s not needed for e.g. much of price theory, which is the main sort of application I imagine. Indeed, if we look at Glen Weyl’s definition of price theory, it immediately sounds like it would be applicable to many problems in biology.
(Also, I suspect one could work around the absence of a budget constraint by directly observing the consumption function.)
To really compare to an economic price signal, it should be a resource transfer from one actor to another—the price “paid” by a buyer is equal to the amount “received” by the buyer. I don’t see this for most physiological processes—they are signals, but more like feedback loop and control theory signals than they are price signals. There _are_ symbiosis/parasite cases that are closer to a price system, where one organism gives up something to another, in exchange for future benefits.
That’s not necessary for all results. It would be relevant to some—e.g. monetary economics (obviously), budgets constraints, and anything where the role of money as an incentive is crucial. But it’s not needed for e.g. much of price theory, which is the main sort of application I imagine. Indeed, if we look at Glen Weyl’s definition of price theory, it immediately sounds like it would be applicable to many problems in biology.
(Also, I suspect one could work around the absence of a budget constraint by directly observing the consumption function.)