Commerce, Complexity, and Evolution
Topics in Economics, Finance, Marketing, and Management: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics

Evolutionary approach to systems from the entire economy to the behaviour of single markets.

William A. Barnett (Edited by), Carl Chiarella (Edited by), Steve Keen (Edited by), Robert Marks (Edited by), Hermann Schnabl (Edited by)

9780521620307, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 June 2000

424 pages, 110 b/w illus. 37 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.73 kg

Commerce, Complexity, and Evolution is a significant contribution to the paradigm - straddling economics, finance, marketing, and management - which acknowledges that commercial systems are evolutionary, and must therefore be analysed using evolutionary tools. Evolutionary systems display complicated behaviours which are to a significant degree generated endogenously, rather than being solely the product of exogenous shocks, hence the conjunction of complexity with evolution. This volume considers a wide range of systems, from the entire economy at one extreme to the behaviour of single markets at the other. The papers are united by methodologies which at their core are evolutionary, though the techniques cover a wide range, from philosophical discourse to differential equations, genetic algorithms, multi-agent simulations and cellular automata. Issues considered include the dynamics of debt-deflation, stock management in a complex environment, interactions between consumers and its effect upon market behaviour, and nonlinear methods to profit from financial market volatility.

Part I. The Philosophical and Methodological Implications of Complexity and Evolution in Economic Systems: 1. Towards a generalized coase theorem: a theory of the emergence of social and institutional structures under imperfect information Bertin Martens
2. Universal Darwinism and social research: the case of economics John Nightingale
3. Uncertainty, risk and chaos James Juniper
4. The role of innovation within economics Russell K. Standish
Part II. Finance and the Macro-economy: 5. The nonlinear economics of debt deflation Steve Keen
6. The emergence of complex dynamics in a 'naturally' nonlinear integrated Keynesian model of monetary growth Carl Chiarella and Peter Flaschel
7. Stochastic volatility in interest rates and complex dynamics in velocity William A. Barnett and Haiyang Xu
8. A genetic programming-based approach to generation of foreign exchange trading models Andrew Colin
9. Hybrid option pricing using an optimal weighted implied standard deviation Paul Lajbcygier, Andrew Flitman and Mairmuthu Palaniswami
Part III. Market and Sectoral Dynamics: 10. Evolutionary patterns of multisectoral growth dynamics Hermann Schnabl
11. The detection of evolutionary change in nonlinear economic processes: a new statistical methodology John Foster and Phillip Wild
12. Ergodic chaos in a piecewise linear cobweb model Akio Matsumato
13. The cobweb model and a modified genetic algorithm Janice Gaffney, Krystyna Parrott and Franz Salzborn
14. On the convergence of genetic learning algorithms, with particular reference to recent cobweb models C. E. M. Pearce
Part IV. Marketing and Interdependent Behaviour: 15. A complex systems simulation approach to evaluating plan-based and reactive trading strategies Robert B. Johnson and John M. Betts
16. Genetic algorithms and evolutionary games Xin Yao and Paul Darwen
17. Evolved perception and the validation of simulation models Robert Marks
18. The application of cellular automata and agent models to network externalities in consumers' theory: a generalization of life game Sobei H. Oda, Ken Miura, Kanji Ueda and Yasunori Baba
19. Engendering change Joshua S. Gans.

Subject Areas: Econometrics [KCH]