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What Is Evolutionary Economics?

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Evolutionary and Neo-Schumpeterian Approaches to Economics

Part of the book series: Recent Economic Thought ((RETH,volume 36))

Abstract

All evolution is concerned with the growth of knowledge, a proposition no less true in economic systems (and society in general) than in biological ones. As the philosopher Elliott Sober (1984) notes, evolutionary theory is a theory of forces, that is, a theory of the causes of change, of the processes that produce a certain sequence of events and entities. Hayek (1945, p. 523) proposed that “economic problems arise always and only in consequence of change.” This implies that evolutionary theory is one way of studying economic problems. What is the evolutionary explanation in economics? How does it differ from the orthodox, that is, the neoclassical, explanation? The essay is an attempt to answer these questions by looking at the history and present state of evolutionary thinking in economics.

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  1. Department of Economics The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Box U-63 Room 328, 341 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT, 06269-1063, USA

    Richard N. Langlois & Michael J. Everett

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  1. Richard N. Langlois
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  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala

    Lars Magnusson

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Langlois, R.N., Everett, M.J. (1994). What Is Evolutionary Economics?. In: Magnusson, L. (eds) Evolutionary and Neo-Schumpeterian Approaches to Economics. Recent Economic Thought, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-35155-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-35155-1_2

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