Understanding Economic Change: Advances in Evolutionary Economics

Cambridge University Press, 11/29/2018
EAN 9781107136205, ISBN10: 1107136202

Hardcover, 408 pages, 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.5 cm
Language: English

Although the economy has always been changing, ever more innovations now seem to accelerate the transformation process. Are there any laws governing the incessant global change? Does it accord with our intentions and desires and make us happier? Do our institutions and our democracies cope with the challenges? How does economic theory explain what is going on? In this volume, experts in the field discuss the advances that evolutionary economics has made in exploring questions like these. The broad range of topics include a review of the development of the field: its conceptual and methodological characteristics are outlined; problems posed by macroeconomic evolution and the institutional challenges are highlighted; and, last but not least, the implications of the evolution of the economy for wellbeing and sustainability are addressed. Taken together, the contributions demonstrate the potential of an evolutionary paradigm for making sense of economic change and for assessing its consequences.

Part I. Introduction
1. Evolutionary economics
taking stock of its progress and emerging challenges Ulrich Witt and Andreas Chai
Part II. Conceptual and Methodological Problems
2. Missed connections and opportunities foregone
a counterfactual history of twentieth century economics Brian J. Loasby
3. Science, technology, and knowledge
what historians can learn from an evolutionary approach Joel Mokyr
4. Generalized Darwinism in evolutionary economics
the devil is in the details Jack Vromen
Part III. Perspectives on Evolutionary Macroeconomics
5. Macroeconomic evolution
long run development and short run policies Richard H. Day
6. Evolutionary micro-founded technical change and the Kaldor-Verdoorn law
estimates from an artificial world André Lorentz
Part IV. Advances in Explaining and Assessing Institutional Evolution
7. Democracy, rationality and religion Dennis C. Mueller
8. On the evolution of organizational governance
divided governance and survival in the long run Roger D. Congleton
9. Strategic interaction and externalities
FD-games and pollution Reinoud Joosten
10. Fairness in urban land use
an evolutionary contribution to law and economics Christian Schubert
Part V. Evolutionary Perspectives on Welfare and Sustainability
11. As innovations drive economic change, do they also improve our welfare? Martin Binder and Ulrich Witt
12. Sustainable consumption patterns and the malleability of consumer preferences
an evolutionary perspective Andreas Chai.