Exchange and evolution

This paper offers an extension of the distinction of [Kohn, Cato Journal, 24:303–339 (2004)] between the two paradigms of modern economic theory—value and exchange—as derived from the generic–operant framework of [Dopfer and Potts, The general theory of economic evolution, Routledge, London, (2007)]. I argue that Austrian and evolutionary economics can be analytically unified about a general framework of rule coordination and change that I shall call the generic value paradigm. This is an analytic generalization of Kohn’s “exchange paradigm” that will allow us to redefine his conception of the “value paradigm” as the operational value paradigm in terms of the economics of known and fully exploited opportunities. The generic value paradigm, in turn, underpins the economics of the growth of knowledge and the evolution of the economic order as an open-system process due to the origination, adoption, and retention of novel generic rules. Austrian economics is then circumscribed as a special case of the more general “generic” analysis of the coordination and evolution of economic rules.      

Bioeconomics as economics from a Darwinian perspective

Bioeconomics—the merging of views from biology and economics—on the one hand invites the 'export' of situational logic and sophisticated optimization developed in economics into biology. On the other hand, human economic activity and its evolution, not least over the past few centuries, may be considered an instance for fruitfully applying ideas from evolutionary biology and Darwinian theory. The latter perspective is taken in the present paper. Three different aspects are discussed in detail. First, the Darwinian revolution provides an example of a paradigm shift which contrasts most significantly with the 'subjectivist revolution' that took place at about the same time in economics. Since many of the features of the paradigmatic change that were introduced into the sciences by Darwinism may be desirable for economics as well, the question is explored whether the Darwinian revolution can be a model for introducing a new paradigm in economic theory. Second, the success of Darwinism and its view of evolution have induced economists who are interested in an evolutionary approach in economics to borrow, more or less extensively, concepts and tools from Darwinian theory. Particularly prominent are constructions based on analogies to the theory of natural selection. Because several objections to such analogy constructions can be raised, generalization rather than analogy is advocated here as a research strategy. This means to search for abstract features which all evolutionary theories have in common. Third, the question of what a Darwinian world view might mean for assessing long term economic evolution is discussed. Such a view, it is argued, can provide a point of departure for reinterpreting the hedonistic approach to economic change and development. On the basis of such an interpretation bioeconomics may not only go beyond the optimization-cum-equilibrium paradigm currently prevailing in economics. It may also mean adding substantial qualifications to the subjectivism the neoclassical economists, at the turn of the century, were proud to establish in the course of their scientific revolution.     

Micro-meso-macro

Building on the ontology of evolutionary realism recently proposed by Dopfer and Potts (forthcoming), we develop an analytical framework for evolutionary economics with a micro-meso-macro architecture. The motive for reconception is to make clear the highly complex and emergent nature of existence and change in economic evolution. For us, the central insight is that an economic system is a population of rules, a structure of rules, and a process of rules. The economic system is a rule-system contained in what we call the meso. From the evolutionary perspective, one cannot directly sum micro into macro. Instead, we conceive of an economic system as a set of meso units, where each meso consists of a rule and its population of actualizations. The proper analytical structure of evolutionary economics is in terms of micro-meso-macro. Micro refers to the individual carriers of rules and the systems they organize, and macro consists of the population structure of systems of meso. Micro structure is between the elements of the meso, and macro structure is between meso elements. The upshot is an ontologically coherent framework for analysis of economic evolution as change in the meso domain - in the form of what we call a meso trajectory - and a way of understanding the micro-processes and macro-consequences involved. We believe that the micro-meso-macro analytical framework can greatly enhance the focus, clarity, and, ultimately, power, of evolutionary economic theory.JEL Classification: B0, C0, D0, E0, O0, P0Kurt Dopfer, John Foster, Jason Potts: We acknowledge to those who have discussed these ideas with us at the Schumpeter Society Conference, Gainesville US 2002; ECG seminars, UQ Economics, Brisbane (also students of ECON7900); Doctoral seminars at University of St. Gallen 2002, 2003; Wartensee Workshops on Evolutionary Economics 2001, 2002, 2003; the MPI in Evolutionary Economics, Jena; SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton; and the Brisbane Club Workshop, Manchester 2002. Our many discussants have helped us see our way through the muddled (and sometimes seriously muddled) thinking that had happened along the way, and especially when it was our own. So the usual disclaimer shall apply, although perhaps with unusual force. Special thanks also to G. Blind and K. Morrison.Correspondence to: Jason PottsDare we suggest a new category in the JEL classification - (S0) Meso Economics: General.     

Evolution,complex systems and technological change 1

A particularly weak area of mainstream economics is its theoretical capacity to handle structural economic change. And yet the advent of major new technologies, combined with the growing integration of the international economic system, has placed structural change high on the policy agenda. This paper suggests an alternative theoretical approach. By portraying economic systems as complex open systems it is possible to view their long-term evolution in a more realistic way. However, in order to do this it is also necessary to borrow from other disciplines such as biology, physics and computer science where research of a similar genre has been carried out. The paper explores what this means for our understanding of many of the underlying concepts associated with technological change and ends with a programmatic plea to broaden the disciplinary bounds of economics.     

Resilience in the Dynamics of Economy-Environment Systems

The ecological concept of resilience has begun to inform analysis of change in economy-environment systems. The linkages between resilience and the stability of dynamical systems are discussed, along with its role in understanding of the evolution of such systems. Particular linkages discussed include those between resilience, biodiversity and the sustainability of alternative states. Recent developments in modelling the resilience of joint economy-environment systems suggest the advantages of analysing change in the system as a Markov process, the transition probabilities between states offering a natural measure of the resilience of the system in such states. It is argued that this ‘emergent property’ of the collaboration between ecology and economics has far-reaching implications for the way we think about, model and manage the environmental sustainability of economic development.     

Ecological macroeconomics: An application to climate change

Ecological economics has not paid sufficient attention to the macroeconomic level both in terms of theory and modeling. Yet, key topics debated in the field of ecological economics such as sustainable consumption, reduction in working time, the degrowth debate, the energy–exergy link, and the rebound effect require a holistic and macro perspective. While this deficiency has been identified before and Keynesian economics has been generally suggested as a potent vehicle to establish economic systemic thinking, very little concrete theorizing and practical suggestions have been put forward. We give further credence to this suggestion and demonstrate the value of tackling key concerns of ecological economics within a Keynesian growth framework. Contextualized by an application to climate change we suggest that policy relevant recommendations need to be based on a consistent view of the macroeconomy. We end with laying out key building blocks for a Keynesian model framework for an ecological macroeconomics.     

Evolution-Based Approaches in Economics and Evolutionary Loss of Information

Evolutionary economics provides a self-organizing, stabilizing mechanism without relying on mechanic equilibria. However, there are substantial differences between the genetic evolutionary biology and the evolution of institutions, firms, routines, or strategies in economics. Most importantly, there is no genetic codification and no sexual reproduction in economic evolution, and the involved agents can interfere consciously and purposefully. This entails a general lack of fixation and a quick loss of information through a Muller’s ratchet-like mechanism. The present contribution discusses the analogy of evolution in biology and economics, and considers potential problems resulting in evolutionary models in economics.     

宏观经济学中的政治经济学——以新政治经济学的研究方法为视角

新政治经济学以使用经济学现代方法对政治与经济相互作用的研究为核心,成为政治经济学的一个新发展。宏观经济学中的政治经济学作为新政治经济学的一个重要分支,其研究对象是政治对宏观经济运行和政策的影响。宏观经济学中的政治经济学的出现对当代宏观经济理论的影响,则表现在研究形式和研究方法所做的创新。     

Organizational versus Market Knowledge: From Concrete Embodiment to Abstract Representation

Synopsis In contrast to the neoclassical economic presumption in favor of markets, we argue that organizations, not markets should be taken as our default assumption. We do so on information processing grounds. We distinguish between Zen and market Knowledge. The first is embodied and hard to articulate and the second abstract-symbolic. In human evolution, the first type of knowledge came first, and, on any pragmatic definition of knowledge, it still incorporates most of what we mean by the term. We take codification and abstraction as the two data processing activities that lead to the articulation of knowledge into an abstract-symbolic form. We develop a conceptual framework, the Information-Space (I-Space) to show how far the articulation of knowledge leads to its being shared. Whereas an unlimited sharing of information and knowledge leads to market-oriented outcomes, a more limited sharing leads to organizational outcomes. A market-oriented economics has tended to look to physics for its models; the field of organization theory has tended to look to biology. A more organization-oriented economics would thus look more to biology for its models.     

Domestication experiments reveal developmental link between friendliness and cognition

The goal of economics is to understand human preferences. Most research focuses on adult humans and does not take an evolutionary approach. In biology experimental evolution has been able to shift the preferences of animals. As an example, artificial selection for friendly behavior toward humans results in a syndrome of changes that strongly resembles differences between wild and domestic animals. These domestication experiments have revealed precise genetic and neurobiological systems that are altered by the selection and linked through expanded windows of development. Similar evolutionary experiments selecting for a range of social, risk or discounting preferences could push economics toward consilience with biology. Prospects for a unified theory of economic behavior would be drastically improved.     

Evolutionary Theories in Environmental and Resource Economics: Approaches and Applications

Recent advances in evolutionary theory have important implications for environmental economics. A short overview is offered of evolutionarythinking in economics. Subsequently, major concepts and approaches inevolutionary biology and evolutionary economics are presented andcompared. Attention is devoted, among others, to Darwinian selection,punctuated equilibrium, sorting mechanisms, Lamarckian evolution,coevolution and self-organization. Basic features of evolution, such assustained change, irreversible change, unpredictability, qualitativechange and disequilibrium, are examined. It is argued that there are anumber of fundamental differences as well as similarities betweenbiological and economic evolution. Next, some general implications ofevolutionary thinking for environmental economics are outlined. This isfollowed by a more detailed examination of potential uses ofevolutionary theories in specific areas of environmental economics,including sustainability and long run development theories, technologyand environment, ecosystem management and resilience, spatial evolutionand environmental processes, and design of environmental policy.     

Evolutionary developmental economics: how to generalize Darwinism fruitfully to help comprehend economic change

Darwinism is shown possible to generalize fruitfully to help comprehend economic change by drawing on evolutionary developmental biology (“evo–devo”)—its recent version, less concerned with replication of genes than with genomic instructing of development of organisms. The result is a conceptual model with multilevel applications, generalizing development as instructed self-organizing with inputs from environments, and evolution as experimental search for instructions making the development successful. Its economic interpretation suggests to unite several existing fields into evolutionary developmental economics, where economic change can be studied comprehensively as development instructed by actual institutional rules, intertwined with the evolution of these rules.     

Institutions and Values: A Methodological Inquiry

Economics entails a study of institutions regardless of the school of thought, and it is inherently an analysis of institutional transformation with a vision toward creating positive social change through economic arrangements. However, the conceptions of institutions, identity of individuals, human nature as it pertains to economics, identification of the economic sphere, its concerns, and studying its evolution, all vary substantively across schools of thought. We examine the following issues: (i) the differences in the ontological identity of the individual between heterodox approaches, new institutional economics (NIE), and the neoclassical school; (ii) the central point of divergence between original institutional economics (OIE) and NIE, despite both schools being committed to the project of an “institutionally” centered approach to economics; and (iii) the absence of a cohesive project to explore foundational theoretical congruencies among those heterodox approaches that have a shared vision, values, and a common ontological identity of socially embedded people.     

Economic Competition and Evolution: Are There Lessons from Ecology?

After generally discussing models in ecology and economics that combine competition, optimization, and evolution, this article concentrates on models of intraspecific competition. It demonstrates the importance of diversity/inequalities within populations of species and other environments for the sustainability of their populations, given the occurrence of environmental change. This is demonstrated both for scramble (open-access) and contest competition. Implications are drawn for human populations and industrial organization. The possibility is raised that within-industry competition may not always exist between firms in all stages of the development of a new industry. Policy implications are considered. For example, it is argued that policies designed to encourage intense business competition and maximum economic efficiency have the drawback of eventually making industries highly vulnerable to exogenous economic changes. (JEL L100 , J100 , Q150 )     

Alternative perspectives on connections in economic systems

This paper explores the significance of Potts’s (2000) claim that the key difference between orthodox and heterodox economics lies in the former viewing the economy as a mathematical field in which everything is connected to everything else, and the latter viewing it as a complex system in which only some elements are connected. It focuses on the types of connections in economic systems that different economists have identified and the significance of the degree of connectivity for how economic systems function. Topics explored include separable consumer networks, separable utility functions, checklist-based decision rules, lifestyles, goodwill, the nature of business strategies and evolution.     

ASIAN FINANCIAL LINKAGE: MACRO‐FINANCE DISSONANCE

How are Asian financial markets interlinked and how are they linked to markets in developed countries? What is the main driver of fluctuations in Asian financial markets as well as real economic activity? To answer these questions, we estimate the spillover index proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz and gauge the degree of interaction in both financial markets and real economic activity among Asian economies. We first show that the degree of the international spillover in stock markets is uniform, irrespective of the groups of countries concerned, such as the G3 and ASEAN4. This suggests the importance of global common shocks in stock markets. We then discuss the macro‐finance dissonance. In stock and bond markets, the United States has been the main driver of fluctuations. However, China has emerged as an important source of fluctuations in real economic activity.     

Economics,Democracy, and the Distribution of Capital Ownership

This article holds that widespread, practical access to capital acquisition is essential for sustainable widespread economic prosperity and democracy. The founders of the U.S.A. agreed that sustainable democracy required widespread ownership of land to provide a viable earning capacity sufficient to support robust participation in democratic government. The importance of widespread land ownership to individual prosperity and sustainable democracy was supported not only by the prevailing philosophical views of property, it was also apparent to the common man and woman. Compared to Europe, America offered widespread access to land ownership, higher wages, better work conditions, cheaper staples and greater individual freedom, equal opportunity, prosperity, and political participation. This conviction that widespread access to ownership is a necessary condition for widespread prosperity and sustainable democracy continued throughout most of the nineteenth century, but today public discourse reveals virtually no trace of this once universally held opinion. This article suggests that the disappearance of this conviction can be traced to an erroneous view shaped by neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics. According to this view, (1) the disappearance of the American frontier and industrialization made the goal of widespread capital ownership either impractical or of little or no economic significance and (2) by way of technological advance, sufficient earning capacity and consumer demand to promote growth and sustain democracy can be achieved, without widespread ownership, primarily through jobs and welfare. Although differing in many respects, both mainstream schools, along with Adam Smith’s classical economics, share one common but unstated economic assumption: the broader distribution of capital acquisition (in itself) has no fundamental relationship to the fuller employment of people and capital, the broader distribution of greater individual earning capacity, and growth. Contemporary thinking, shaped by these economic schools, also tacitly assumes that widespread capital ownership is not essential for the sustainable individual earning capacity needed to support robust democracy. This erroneous “ownership-neutrality assumption” (1) contradicts both the views of America’s founders and the colonial experience, and (2) provides theoretical justification for structuring capital markets and capital acquisition transactions to unfairly and dysfunctionally favor existing owners at the expense of broader ownership distribution, more widely shared prosperity, greater efficiency, ecologically friendly growth, and a vital democracy. America’s conscientious founders would be shocked by the diminished importance of the distribution of ownership in the mainstream analysis of prices, efficiency, production, growth, and democracy. Rather than enhancing democracy, they would view the “ownership-neutrality assumption” of mainstream economics as contributing to its deterioration and corruption. They would openly search for economic analysis built on an alternate assumption more consistent with their understanding of the requisite conditions for sustainable democracy. This article advances an economic analysis that suspends the ownership-neutrality assumption, replaces it with a “broader-ownership-growth assumption,” and suggests a voluntary market strategy for substantially broadening capital ownership, enhancing individual earning capacity, and providing the widespread economic prosperity needed for robust democracy.     

新凯恩斯主义粘性信息理论研究评述

为了说明价格粘性与工资粘性产生的微观基础,新凯恩斯主义者近年来提出了粘性信息模型,认为关于宏观经济运行的各种信息在经济主体之间的传播是缓慢的,其原因在于获取信息和处理信息是需要花费成本的,最优化也是需要成本的,虽然价格总是变动的,但企业的价格决策并不是总是以当前最新的信息为基础,这就产生了理性的疏忽。新凯恩斯主义者提出了粘性信息的菲利普斯曲线,认为当前通货膨胀率不仅仅取决于当前产出,还依赖于过去对当前通货膨胀率以及产出缺口变动率的预期。本文认为粘性信息理论是凯恩斯主义理论的一次重大飞跃,对微观经济主体的假设更加系统、更接近现实,克服了完全理性假说非现实性的缺点,对经济活动的解释更具有可信度,是当代宏观经济学的重要进展。     

The origins of meso economics

The paper starts from Schumpeter’s proposition that entrepreneurs carry out innovations (the micro level), that swarms of followers imitate them (meso) and that, as a consequence, ‘creative destruction’ leads to economic development ‘from within’ (macro). It is argued that Schumpeter’s approach can be developed into a new—more general—micro-meso-macro framework in economics. Center stage is meso. Its essential characteristic is bimodality, meaning that one idea (the generic rule) can be physically actualized by many agents (a population). Ideas can relate to others, and, in this way, meso constitutes a structure component of a ‘deep’ invisible macro structure. Equally, the rule actualization process unfolds over time—modelled in the paper as a meso trajectory with three phases of rule origination, selective adoption and retention—and here meso represents a process component of a visible ‘surface’ structure. The macro measure with a view to the appropriateness of meso components is generic correspondence. At the level of ideas, its measure is order; at that of actual relative adoption frequencies, it is generic equilibrium. Economic development occurs at the deep level as transition from one generic rule to another, inducing a change of order, and, at the surface level, as the new rule is adopted, destroying an old equilibrium and establishing a new one.