Evolutionary Economics as a Trend in Modern Economics: An Overview

The development theory proposed in this study emphasizes different aspects of economic development. Various aspects of the theory, including the choice of indicators in economic analysis, fast and slow variables, the time scale of the study period, business cycles, the role of monetary variables in economic evolution, inflation, economic controls and technological change, have been studied. Analytically, in contrast to traditional economic growth theory, we treat nonlinearity and instability as sources of order in economic development. We have argued that complicated economic behavior can be explained by introducing nonlinearity and instability into economic analysis. In what follows, we summarize the results of our study and outline some problems which remain to be solved.KeywordsPrice EquationBalance Growth PathNeoclassical TheoryProfit RateInvestment DemandThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

John Holland's work has combined what appears to be a complicated but technical contribution to giving approximate solutions for a class of difficult problems with a deepening of our understanding of the way we all do induction, of how the experience of the world modifies and improves our behavior and our decisions. Such a comprehension necessarily alters the viewpoint of the behavioral sciences. In this chapter, I want to concentrate on some of the already apparent ways in which he has altered our understanding of the complex dynamic system that constitutes the economic world. Of course, the genetic algorithm can be and has been used as a means of solving hard problems in economic analysis, as in any other field. That is, it is an aid to the analyst, and a powerful one. I want, however, to emphasize the second aspect of Holland's work, the implications of the genetic algorithm as a description of human problem-solving behavior in a complicated world. The economic world is complicated partly because it depends on the physical and biological world which governs the techniques of production. More interestingly, though, the economic world is complicated because the individuals in it are interacting through markets. It is an old observation among economists, going back to Adam Smith's observation of the invisible hand, that economic events are the results of human actions but are not necessarily an achievement of human intentions. In the murk of the economic world, individuals have to act. They have to make choices as to what they will consume, how much they will save, what goods they will produce and how they will produce them, and then what investments they will make. They make these choices with a view to their consequences, personal satisfaction today or in their future or the satisfaction of their heirs, the profits to be made now or in the future by producing goods, and the returns on their investments. These choices have an important time dimension; people and many of the things they buy, make, or sell last, and the outcomes of current decisions depend on events which will occur in the future. The life of the decisionmaker is uncertain, so is his or her health.

Today, the neoclassic economic theory still dominates the economic analysis, prediction, and even public economic policy, encouraged, unfortunately, by the career criteria in science and education fields. In such a context, the objectives of the paper are: (1) to systematize the findings related to the unrealism and theoretical and methodological mistakes of the economic neoclassic model; (2) to argue about the desirability, reliability, realism, and efficaciousness of an evolutionary model of the economy (and of Economics); (3) to draw the basic lines which an evolutionary economic theory could be edified on, starting from both the statu quo in the matter and the logical examination of the question. The approach of research is a mix between logical and historical (but not empirical) views regarding the evolutionary economic model/theory. The main results are: (a) arguing on the possibility of crystalizing the basic concepts of an evolutionary economic model; (b) making proposals for the evolutionary economic mechanism (in its abstract understanding – as cybernetic system of order 3); (c) warning on the risks of a tale quale taking over of the evolutionary concepts from Biology; (d) identifying the principles to be followed in building up of an evolutionary economic theory.

In the setting of modern economics, Marshall’s economic biology Mecca is most obviously situated within evolutionary economics. In this chapter, some very general themes in evolutionary economics are discussed; themes which would no doubt have been of interest to Marshall if he had been embarked on a journey towards his selected Mecca during more recent times.1 The arrival of modern evolutionary theory is often associated with the 1982 publication of Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter’s An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change; however, the application of evolutionary thinking to economic analysis has a long history, with the work of two acclaimed pioneers, Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter, acknowledged in this chapter.2 Marshall’s less widely recognised credentials as a pioneering evolutionary economist are reconfirmed in the chapter that follows.

Currently the vast regional areas in China are confronted with spatial restructuring and problems aroused by rapid economic development, and uneven development between regions is in desperate need of solution in particular. Base on the annual economic development statistic data in the Yangtze River Delta city group, this paper uses GeoDA and Arcgis to generate thematic map for economic spatial evolution feature analysis of geographic data. The results show that: there has been a significant absolute difference for the economic development of the Yangtze River Delta city group, and this trend is further exacerbated. Meanwhile, the paper makes exploring research on economic space evolution in China from the aspects of global spatial evolution characteristics and local spatial evolution characteristics by using geographic information technology.

Economic emergence: An evolutionary economic perspective

Economic Thought and Economic Evolution during the last 150 Years

The Case against Carbon Prices

This article discusses the three concepts of `learning', `entrepreneurship' and `dynamics of the firm' in order to bridge some of the gap between micro and macro levels of analysis in evolutionary economics. This article addresses the following four issues: 1) Localized learning dependent on the extent to which knowledge is individual vs. collective, 2) Entrepreneurship distributed in systems of innovation, 3) Entrepreneurs changing selection criteria, and 4) Rationality vs. uncertainty affecting the dynamics of firms.

The article addresses the ecosystems in the socio-economic sphere as network forms of organizing economic activity, operating under conditions of digital technological infrastructure that brings together various economic agents. The aim of the study is the subject identification of ecosystems carried out by highlighting the essential characteristics and theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the subject. Apart from universal methods of cognition, the authors provide a systematic literature review, in particular, the frequency analysis of scientific articles. Such approach allows to identify the three dimensions within which the ecosystems are determined: socio-economic, technological and physico-biological. Ecosystems have a network of multilevel in-built structure characterized by scalability, self-organization, stability and dynamism. The equilibrium of ecosystems is conditional due to the dynamic interaction of economic actors: a combination of competition and cooperation, vertical integration and horizontal network relations, formal and informal contracts. Ecosystem development is determined by the innovation potential: entrepreneurs play an important role, as well as information, data and knowledge used to develop innovations. To study ecosystems, scientific literature applies a general conceptual apparatus of economic science, as well as the conceptual apparatus formed within new institutional economic theory (NIET), evolutionary economics and theory of innovation. NIET can be applied to the study of ecosystems in the field of contract theory, applying the method of discrete structural alternatives. The dichotomous division of ecosystems into economic entities and environments used is a principle that is applied in evolutionary economics. The results of this study can be applied to ecosystem regulation, as well as developing the courses on digital economy.

Evolutionary Economic Thought explores the theoretical roots of the evolutionary approach, and in so doing, demonstrates how it fits squarely into the theoretical mainstream. Focusing on the institutions of evolutionary change and the processes – such as competition – that generate change, this book takes account of important European contributions to the discipline, hitherto overshadowed by the American paradigm. As such, the book serves to broaden the current discourse. Whilst evolutionary economics itself is a well-researched and widely documented field, this book will be credited with establishing a history of evolutionary economic thought.

The paper shows that the major methodological problems of modern economics are rooted in internal contradictions and inconsistencies of positivism as applied to social sciences. Evolutionary economics is considered as an alternative approach to mainstream economics, capable of overcoming internal deficiencies that mainstream economics faces. But within evolutionary economics one can find different methodological grounds leading to multiple views on how to analyze complex economic reality, build models and evaluate them properly. It is argued that unifying methodological principles of evolutionary economics are to be found in the philosophy of critical realism. The most appropriate scientific method is that of computer simulations.

COVID-19 has brought to the forefront of academic debates the consequences of pandemics and their appropriate policy responses. Using the PRISMA methodology, we provide a comprehensive review of the economic and historical analysis of the long-term economic consequences of pandemics. Mainstream economists focus on the impact of pandemics on production factors, finding a rich but contrasting set of mechanisms with overall negative or insignificant effects. Historians focus on the institutional impact, finding positive effects of pandemics when they trigger new socioeconomic arrangements. Evolutionary economists can integrate into the economic debate both historical elements and the complex biological characteristics of pandemics. We argue that the evolutionary approach provides new and fertile theoretical foundations to understand the phenomenon and develop effective policies.

In this comment I discuss the excellent contribution of Koppl et al. (2014) to our understanding of the role of institutions in the economic system. Much that is offered by them reinforces and extends previous analysis by institutional and evolutionary economists. However, I argue that there are areas of evolutionary economics and complex economic system analysis that need to be integrated into their evolutionary economic perspective to make it more complete. Also, I argue that they are too kind to mainstream economists who purport to deal with institutions and complexity and that they should consider where the boundaries of science should lie in economics.

One of the fundamental developments in modern public choice theory is Constitutional Eco nomics. This area of research concerns how rules affect economic performance, and how the choice of rules to govern the political sector (as opposed to the working of in-period politics) is an important area of economic and political analysis. The founders and developers of this approach are economists, sociologists, and political scientists, such as Duncan Black, James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Mancur Olson, William Riker, Charles Rowley, Geoffrey Brennan, James Coleman, Kenneth Shepsle, Robert Tollison and others.1 Of late, a new wave of scholars has taken an interest in this area. For example, Persson and Tabellini (2003) wrote a well-received book on the political economy of constitutions and constitutional rules, which Daron Acemoglu (2005) discusses in a recent review article. So interest in constitutions is growing as modern political economists revisit ground that others, most prominently, James Buchanan, have plowed many times over dating back to the 1960's. It is all to the good that first-class scholars are attracted to the subject of Consti tutional Economics. It is disappointing, however, that these authors do not appear to know much about this earlier work. There are cursory references to Buchanan and Tullock (1962) and Brennan and Buchanan (1980) in Persson and Tabellini, and none at all in Acemoglu. I cannot think of a parallel example of such treatment. For example, would you write a book about macroeconomic theory without fully acknowledging the contributions of John May nard Keynes, or about the evolution of neoclassical economics without mentioning Alfred Marshall, or about the origins of political economy without mentioning Adam Smith? So there is no doubt some unacknowledged old wine in this new literature on constitu tions, as well as some strongly self-acknowledged new wine focused on empirical research