An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change PDF Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674041431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change PDF Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674041431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

Modern Evolutionary Economics

Modern Evolutionary Economics PDF Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108660789
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Evolutionary economics sees the economy as always in motion with change being driven largely by continuing innovation. This approach to economics, heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Schumpeter, saw a revival as an alternative way of thinking about economic advancement as a result of Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter's seminal book, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, first published in 1982. In this long-awaited follow-up, Nelson is joined by leading figures in the field of evolutionary economics, reviewing in detail how this perspective has been manifest in various areas of economic inquiry where evolutionary economists have been active. Providing the perfect overview for interested economists and social scientists, readers will learn how in each of the diverse fields featured, evolutionary economics has enabled an improved understanding of how and why economic progress occurs.

The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics

The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics PDF Author: Kurt Dopfer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139443234
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description
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.

Evolutionary Theories of Economic and Technological Change

Evolutionary Theories of Economic and Technological Change PDF Author: (Pier) Paolo Saviotti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351127683
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Recently, evolutionary theories of economic and technological change have attracted a considerable amount of attention which reflects the problems encountered by mainstream analysis of dynamic phenomena and quantitative change. This book, originally published in 1991, develops the debate and draws on the concepts of evolutionary biology, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, systems and organization theory. While recognizing that new technology is not the cause of quantitative change, the editors claim it should play a more central role in economic theory and policy. At the same time, the ground is laid for a more generalized concept of innovation and experimentation and their relation to routine activities. The book is intended for economists.

Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope

Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope PDF Author: Kurt Dopfer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401006482
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope offers a fresh look at the paradigmatic foundations and basic theoretical propositions of economics. Twelve authors - each of them with his own distinct contribution to economics - make a step forward by reinterpreting major areas of micro and macroeconomics in line with modern evolutionary thinking. This volume offers a unified approach to economics that allows recent developments in various strands of Evolutionary Economics to be integrated and major positions of Neoclassical Economics to be reconsidered. The chapters on `Evolutionary Macro Economics' explore macro areas such as the division of labor and knowledge, technology and institutions, population thinking, meso economics, techno-economic trajectories and industrial sectors. By telescoping structure into time, they highlight the processes of structural change and co-evolution between technologies and institutions, and provide a causal-explanatory core for a modern - evolutionary - theory of economic growth and economic development. The chapters on `Evolutionary Micro Economics' offer insights into the knowledge based theories of the firm and take up the issues of cognitive and behavioral routines. The contributions explore the processes of complex human choice, creativity, and adaptation in selective and path-dependent environments. The discussions make an essential contribution to the cognitive and behavioral foundations of a modern institutional economics.

Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction

Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction PDF Author: J. Stanley Metcalfe
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 041540648X
Category : Evolutionary economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
The central theme of this book is competition treated as an evolutionary process in which the focus is upon economic change and not economic equilibrium. This theme is explored by linking together differences in economic behaviour with the role of markets as co-ordinating institutions. In this picture innovation plays a central role as a primary source of differential behaviour of firms and the purpose of the book is to identify the consequences of these differences for competition and competitive advantage.

Applied Evolutionary Economics and the Knowledge-based Economy

Applied Evolutionary Economics and the Knowledge-based Economy PDF Author: Andreas Pyka
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1845428994
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This book focuses on knowledge-based economies and attempts to analyze dynamic innovation driven processes within those economies. It shows that evolutionary economics, and in particular the strand of applied industry and innovation studies often called Neo-Schumpeterian economics, has left the nursery of new academic approaches and is able to offer important insights for the understanding of socio-economic processes of change and development having a strong impact on economic reality all over the world. The contributions are summarized under four major sections knowledge and cognition, studies of knowledge-based industries, the geographical dimension of knowledge-based economies and measuring and modelling for knowledge-based economies and give a broad overview of the prolific research being undertaken in applied evolutionary economics. Students will find this book an invaluable resource for future research, as will researchers seeking an introduction to new methods and perspectives of analysis.

Evolution and the Theory of Games

Evolution and the Theory of Games PDF Author: John Maynard Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521288842
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This 1982 book is an account of an alternative way of thinking about evolution and the theory of games.

The Evolution of the Theory of the Firm

The Evolution of the Theory of the Firm PDF Author: David J. Teece
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781786430694
Category : Business enterprises
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This innovative collection of readings analyses how the theory of the firm evolved from several core concepts and building blocks that underpin this important area of economics. The first volume presents a variety of perspectives from leading scholars in the field before introducing the basic elements of: risk and uncertainty; information and knowledge; bounded rationality and decision making; motives and incentives; resources and capabilities; and transactions. The second volume looks at how the various elements are integrated into the modern Theory of the Firm with the notion of organization coming increasingly to the fore. It focuses on norms; rules and routines; the entrepreneur; governance; hierarchies; co-operation, teams and networks; innovation and appropriability. Together with an introduction by the editors, this collection is an invaluable reference tool for all researchers and students with an interest in the modern theory of the firm, highlighting how it needs to evolve further to address the important management and policy issues of our time"--

Microfoundations of Evolutionary Economics

Microfoundations of Evolutionary Economics PDF Author: Yoshinori Shiozawa
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 4431552677
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This book provides for the first time the microfoundations of evolutionary economics, enabling the reader to grasp a new framework for economic analysis that is compatible with evolutionary processes. Any independent approach to economics must include a value theory (or price theory) and price and quantity adjustment processes. Evolutionary economics has rightly and successfully concentrated its efforts on explaining evolutionary processes in technology and institutions. However, it does not have its own value theory and is not capable of explaining the workings of everyday economics processes, in which any evolutionary process would take place. Our point of departure is the addition of myopic agents with severely limited rational and forecasting capacities (in stark contrast to mainstream economics). We show how myopic agents, in a complex world, can produce a stable price system and demonstrate how they can adjust their production to changing demand flows. Agents behave without any knowledge of the overall process, and they generate a stable economy as large as the global network of exchanges. This is the true “miracle” of the market mechanism. In contrast to mainstream general equilibrium theory, this miracle can be explained without the need for an auctioneer or infinitely rational agents. Thanks to this book, evolutionary economics can now claim to be an independent approach to economics that can completely replace mainstream neoclassical economics.