The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics

An original work by eminent economists attempting to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science, first published in 2005.

Kurt Dopfer (Edited by)

9780521691314, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 July 2006

592 pages
17.5 x 10.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.16 kg

'This book is a rare gathering of some of the deepest thinkers of modern evolutionary and complexity-based approaches to economic analysis. The themes reach across and beyond particular subject concerns and into the very foundations and great potential of evolutionary economics. It is a rich and stimulating compendium.' Jason Potts, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia

It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. This 2005 volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges.

Prolegomenon
1. Evolutionary economics: a theoretical framework Kurt Dopfer
Part I. Ontological Foundations: 2. The rediscovery of value and the opening of economics Ilya Prigogine
3. Synergetics: from physics to economics Hermann Haken
4. Darwinism, altruism and economics Herbert A. Simon
5. Decomposition and growth: biological metaphors in economics from the 1880s to the 1980s Geoffrey M. Hodgson
6. Path dependence in economic processes: implications for policy analysis in dynamical systems contexts Paul A. David
7. Is there a theory of economic history? Joel Mokyr
Part II. Framework for Evolutionary Analysis: 8. Toward an evolutionary theory of production Sidney G. Winter
9. Learning in evolutionary environments Giovanni Dosi, Luigi Marengo and Giorgio Fagiolo
10. Evolutionary theory of the firm Ulrich Witt
11. The self-organizational perspective on economic processes: a unifying paradigm John Foster
12. Evolutionary concepts in relation to evolutionary economics J. Stanley Metcalfe
13. Economics and the science of evolutionary complex systems Peter Allen
14. Perspectives on technological evolution Richard R. Nelson
15. Complex dynamics in economic organisms Ping Chen
16. Evolutionary theorizing on economic growth Gerald Silverberg and Bart Verspagen
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Business & management [KJ], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA]