Feldman–Mahalanobis model¶
A two-sector development model prioritizing investment in capital-goods capacity to raise the long-run ability to produce both capital and consumer goods.
Core Idea¶
The model trades near-term consumption against future productive capacity under assumptions about sectoral capital coefficients, savings and closed-economy constraints; historical applications and outcomes require separate evidence. Output is divided between consumption and capital-goods sectors, investment is allocated toward the latter and expanded machine-producing capacity recursively relaxes future investment constraints. The abstraction is therefore identified by a declared carrier, a transformation or constraint over that carrier, and an invariant that tells an analyst whether the named structure is genuinely present.
Scope of Application¶
Feldman–Mahalanobis model belongs to development economics and is useful where the analyst can specify the typed development economics carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, then evaluate the economy and period, sector definitions, output and capital coefficients, savings and investment allocation, capacity constraints, time horizon, consumption path, trade assumptions and empirical comparison are explicit. The scope is broad within that domain but bounded by the need for the economy and period, sector definitions, output and capital coefficients, savings and investment allocation, capacity constraints, time horizon, consumption path, trade assumptions and empirical comparison are explicit. The entry records a descriptive analytical identity; practical use requires the governing domain's evidence, standards, and safety obligations.
Clarity¶
The abstraction clarifies a crowded vocabulary by making the economy and period, sector definitions, output and capital coefficients, savings and investment allocation, capacity constraints, time horizon, consumption path, trade assumptions and empirical comparison are explicit the center of the account. A claim should name the carrier, the governing operation or relation, the applicable assumptions, and the recognition test.
Manages Complexity¶
Without the abstraction, an analyst must reason directly over many local details: the carrier roles, admissibility assumptions, competing conventions, derived invariants, boundary cases, and proof or validation obligations specific to Feldman–Mahalanobis model. Feldman–Mahalanobis model compresses them into the roles in the structural signature. That compression permits comparison across instances without erasing the variables that determine validity. It also exposes which details may be varied safely and which are constitutive.
Abstract Reasoning¶
- Identify the carrier. State what the elements, states, objects, or observations are: the typed development economics carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets. Reject examples whose alleged carrier belongs to a different problem. 2. Lock the constitutive rule. Express the economy and period, sector definitions, output and capital coefficients, savings and investment allocation, capacity constraints, time horizon, consumption path, trade assumptions and empirical comparison are explicit independently of one notation or implementation.
Knowledge Transfer¶
Knowledge transfers strongly among subfields of development economics because they reuse the typed development economics carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, Output is divided between consumption and capital-goods sectors, investment is allocated toward the latter and expanded machine-producing capacity recursively relaxes future investment constraints., and type the carrier, state every parameter and convention in the definition, test that the economy and period, sector definitions, output and capital coefficients, savings and investment allocation, capacity constraints, time horizon, consumption path, trade assumptions and empirical comparison are explicit, compare the nearest accepted identity, and report counterexamples, uncertainty, and limiting cases.
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Feldman–Mahalanobis model Domain-specific
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
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Feldman–Mahalanobis model is a kind of Latent Realizable Capacity Prime
The proposed strict upward parent is
prime:latent_realizable_capacity.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Feldman–Mahalanobis model → Latent Realizable Capacity
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Feldman–Mahalanobis model sits in a crowded region of the domain-specific corpus (16th percentile for distinctiveness): several abstractions share nearly its structure, so a description that fits it tends to fit its neighbors too.
Family — Welfare, Production & Economic Choice (45 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Ragnar Nurkse's balanced growth theory — 0.93
- Transformation in economics — 0.93
- Productive capacity — 0.92
- Dependency theory — 0.92
- Capital intensity — 0.91
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-09-08