Evolution And Economic Complexity

J. Stanley Metcalfe & John Foster Edward Elgar Publishing; ISBN: 1-8437-6526-8 Price: £59.95 £53.96 Hardback, 256 pages, 2004 Buy the book

‘With this important collection of fine new papers, Foster and Metcalfe have brought together another volume that will make an impact on the newly unfolding science-of-complexity approach to economics. Ranging from the theoretical foundations to modeling tools and concrete empirical applications, the contributions cover all relevant areas. The reader is being offered exciting new views on variety generating and selecting mechanisms in the economy and their role for technological and commercial change.’
– Ulrich Witt, Max Planck Institute, Jena, Germany

Dedicated to the goal of furthering evolutionary economic analysis, this book provides a coherent scientific approach to deal with the real world of continual change in the economic system.

Expansive in its scope, this book ranges from abstract discussions of ontology, analysis and theory to more practical discussions on how we can operationalize notions such as ‘capabilities’ from what we understand as ‘knowledge’. Simulation techniques and empirical case studies are also used.

Sharpening the focus of the relationship between economic evolution and economic complexity, the book will be of great interest to academics, students and researchers of evolutionary economics.

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Theoretical Perspectives
1. Evolutionary Foundations of Economics
2. On the Methodology of Assessing Agent-Based Evolutionary Models in the Social Sciences
3. What do Firms Learn? Capabilities, Distribution and the Division of Labour
4. Dynamic Capabilities, Tacit Knowledge and Absorption

Part II: Modelling Complexity
5. The Complexity of Structure, Strategy and Decision Making
6. Knowledges, Specialization and Economic Evolution: Modelling the Evolving Division of Human Time

Part III: Empirical Perspectives
7. Erring to be Right: The Paradox of Error in the Foundation of Probability in Economics
8. Technological and Economic Mobility in Large German Manufacturing Firms
9. A Conceptual Framework to Model Long-run Qualitative Change in the Energy System

Index

Contributors: P.M. Allen, E.S. Anderson, U. Cantner, K. Dopfer, B. Ebersberger, J. Foster, P. Hall, H. Hanusch, J.J. Krüger, F. Louça, J.S. Metcalfe, P. Ormerod, J. Potts, A. Pyka, P. Ramazzotti, B. Roswell

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