Self-Reinforcing Mechanisms and Complex Economic Dynamics

Abstract

There is no general agreement as to what constitutes a complex system. The term itself has been used in different contexts: it can signify systems with chaotic dynamics; it can also refer to cellular automata, ‘neural’ networks, adaptive algorithms, disordered many-body systems, pattern-forming systems and so on. Systems that one often thinks of as complex originated in different areas of science: physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, mathematics, phsychology and economics. These systems share some properties which makes them ‘complex’.