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.

Inhalt

Contributing Authors. Introduction. 1. Evolutionary Economics - Framework for Analysis; K. Dopfer. Foundational Issues. Research Program and Ontology. 2. Evolutionary Economics - An Interpretative Survey; U. Witt. 3. On the Ontological Foundations of Evolutionary Economics; C. Herrmann-Pillath. Evolutionary Macroeconomics. Dynamics: Long-run View and Population Thinking. 4. Evolutionary Approaches to Population Thinking and the Problem of Growth and Development; J.S. Metcalfe. 5. Evolutionary Perspectives on Economic Growth; R.R. Nelson. Statics: Division of Knowledge and Valuation Principles. 6. The Evolutionary Principles of American Neoinstitutional Economics; P.D. Bush, M.R. Tool. 7. Knowledge and Meliorism in the Evolutionary Theory of F.A. Hayek; R. Langlois, M.M. Sabooglu. Evolutionary Microeconomics. Dynamics: Selection, Adaptation and Learning Processes. 8. Selection Processes in Economics; B. Loasby. 9. Adapting, Learning and Economizing; R.H. Day. Statics: Agency, Firm and Economic Structure. 10. Early Signs of a Revolution in Microeconomics; J. Lesourne. 11. Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Reconstruction and Relations to Contractual Theories; N. Foss. Subject Index.