Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2009

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2004

Journal of Evolutionary Economics

The perspective of evolutionary economics on policy, its underlying theoretical implications and conception, as well as implications are different than that of neo-classical economics. In evolutionary economics, economic development Bis seen as a continuing process in space and time^(Boulding 1991, p. 9). It implies that the economy and our knowledge about it are assumed to be continuously evolving. Consequently, universally valid laws and time-invariant facts do not exist therein, which includes policy. BDuring the process of policy making, and in its aftermath, the positive and normative knowledge that informs the actions of the agents involved can change through experience and induced inventive learning^(Witt 2003, p. 77). On the one hand, this view makes policy, its design and consequences, much more complex and less straightforward. On the other hand, it offers a more realistic understanding of the economy that amongst others, allows for adequately analyzing path-dependent and path-breaking dynamics as well as spatial processes shaping the economy. Of particular importance in this context are knowledge diffusion and innovation, which define the pace and direction of these developments. In addition, they shape (future) economic growth potentials. Therefore, it is not surprising that innovation policy is at the center of the policy-oriented evolutionary economics literature (e.g.,

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2006

The aim of this paper is to redefine evolutionary economics in view of its negative and positive identities. The negative identity is formed as a counterargument to neoclassical economics with the hypotheses of optimizing agents and equilibrium, and this functions as a 'vision' that leads to the positive identity. According to the vision, the market is not a universally designed or constructed system, but an autopoietic system or a spontaneous order. In order to specify the positive identity, we examine the ontological/epistemological double meanings of evolutionary economics that entail a recursive relation between economy and economics. Evolutionary economics is redefined as the economics of a largescale, complex and uncertain economy that exists as a loosely connected system with a micro-macro loop structure, facilitated by such social institutions as rules or conventions, multi-layered buffers and routines. It also means the 'analogical-evolutionary pluralist' approach within economics as well as meta-economics in terms of the relationship between economics and history of economics or other disciplines of science. Keywords: the negative and positive identity, bidirectional causal relation, analogicalevolutionary pluralism, meta-economics, large-scale and complex system, multi-layered adjustment, buffer, micro-macro loop.

The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2004

Economists have long followed developments in the 'hard' sciences with an eye toward applying those developments to their own discipline. Hypothesis testing of positive statements, the use of mathematics as the formal language of economic theory, and the use of experiments are all examples of methods economists have borrowed from other disciplines. Economics as an Evolutionary Science is another attempt to improve the field of economics by borrowing the methodology of the natural sciences. Gandolfi, Gandolfi and Barash (GGB) try to incorporate what E.O. Wilson calls consilience (Wilson, 1998) into economics. Wilson argues that the natural sciences have advanced further than the social sciences because all the areas of the natural sciences overlap in a logically and empirically consistent manner. For example, chemists do not posit theories that violate the agreed upon laws of physics; instead chemists build upon those laws when extending their own field. This cross-relatedness and consistency has not been tried in the social sciences, argues Wilson, to the detriment of those who study it. GGB take up the gauntlet thrown down by Wilson, and attempt to link theory from the relatively hard science of biology to economics. In a bold and thought-provoking work, the authors try to make evolution the basis of economic analysis. Many economists have recognized the similarities between economic and evolutionary theory; in addition to making plain those similarities, this book moves further, and attempts to integrate evolution more fully into economics. The authors follow some lines of thought from both evolutionary theory and economic theory to their logical conclusions. Building on Stigler and Becker's (1977) idea that all consumers have the same utility function, the

The three core Darwinian principles of variety, inheritance and selection are found in Nelson and Winter's Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982). Is the application of these core Darwinian principles purely analogical, or does it also relate to ontological communalities between social and biological evolution? Why do Nelson and Winter describe their theory as "Lamarckian" despite this strong Darwinian content? This "Lamarckian" inclination is related to their imperfect and inconsistent definitions of their core concept of "routine". It is argued here that a routine must be treated as a genotype rather than a (behavioural) phenotype. Following Winter (1987), it is also argued that the use of Darwinian principles in economics relates to general features that are common to both social and biological systems. This permits consideration of the routine as a replicator in a broad Darwinian analysis. A definition of replication is taken from the recent literature on cultural evolution and applied to the key concepts of (individual) habit and (organisational) routine. An ontologically-grounded Darwinian and evolutionary economics leads us to a more detailed discussion of the mechanisms of replication, as well as the sources of variety and the processes of selection. LE MYSTÈRE DE LA ROUTINE OU LE DESTIN « DARWINISTE » DE AN EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF ECONOMIC CHANGE Les trois principes centraux de l'approche darwiniste sont présents dans l'ouvrage de Nelson et Winter (1982) : la sélection, la variété et l'héritage. Ce article s'interroge sur leur statut : la mise en oeuvre de ces concepts reste-t-elle purement analogique ? Suppose-t-elle au contraire une articulation forte entre évolution sociale et mutation biologique ? Comment expliquer qu'en dépit de leurs références darwinistes, Nelson et Winter décrivent leur théorie comme « lamarckiste » ? Cette approche « lamarckiste » est mise en relation avec les faiblesses que présentent les définitions du concept central de routine chez ces auteurs : l'argument développé ici est que l'analyse d'une routine doit mettre l'accent sur les génotypes plutôt que sur les comportements et les phénotypes. Conformément à l'approche développée par Winter (1987), on défend l'idée que l'utilisation des concepts darwinistes en économie

2003

Abstract This papers addresses the evolutionary characteristics of social processes from a perspective of the history of economics. The case of Alchian's (1950) paper on'Uncertainty and Evolution'and the ensuing debate is used to illustrate how actors' perception influenced developments in economics science. The evolutionary character of such a conception is discussed.

In the last two decades there has been a noticeable increase in published research in evolutionary economics. The idea that formal modelling is a sine qua non condition for establishing a rigours and coherence scientific frame, has led to an over concern with formalization issues among evolutionary researchers. The general perception is that formalization lags behind the appreciative work. Notwithstanding, this general reading has not yet been supported by real data analysis. This work presents a comprehensive survey on evolutionary economics, intending at exploring the main research paths and contributions of this theorizing framework using bibliometric methods. This documentation effort is based on an extensive review of the abstracts from articles published in all economic journals gathered from the Econlit database over the past fifty years. Evolutionary contributions apparently have not converged to an integrated approach. In the present paper, we document the more important pa...

2014

There are several ways to incorporate evolutionary concepts into economic thinking. This article reviews the most important transfers of this kind into evolutionary economics. It broadly differentiates between approaches that draw on an analogy construction to the biological sphere, those that make metaphorical use of Darwinian ideas, and avenues that are based on the fact that other forms of – cultural – evolution rest upon foundations laid before by natural selection. It is shown that an evolutionary approach within economics informed by insights from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and anthropology contributes to more realistic models of human behavior in economic