Cognition,competition, and catallaxy in memory of Friedrich August von Hayek

The paper focuses on central elements of the scientific work of Friedrich A. v. Hayek since the 1930s. In a first part, his epistemological position and its implications for his understanding of the tasks of the social sciences are presented as he set them out particularly in theSensory Order (1952). Then, it is shown how his findings in economic theory as well as in the analysis of economic and societal systems are formed by these foundations. His emphasis on the subjectivity and the constitutional limitations of human knowledge is identified as a precondition for the outstanding analytical insights which he gained with regard to the functioning of a market order and the role of institutions in societal development. Furthermore, it is argued that Hayek's enduring campaign for freedom and against the socialist tendencies in welfare states was not simply a matter of personal conviction. It was also the result of his analysis in constitutional political economy which revealed to him that freedom as a normative basis of economic and societal institutions is the key to the explanation of European cultural evolution.     

新经济地理学与复杂科学的区位选择模型

1990年代初,新经济地理学和复杂科学都对经济主体区位选择以全新的诠释。基本的不同点在于,新经济地理学模型的基本假设是经济主体行为的完全理性,而复杂科学假设经济主体的行为为有限理性。新经济地理学仍沿用主流经济学一般均衡的框架,而复杂科学的模型是动态和演化的过程。它们的相似之处在于都具有报酬递增、路径依赖和事后决策和调整的特征。根据分析和比较,得出经济地理学未来的学科交叉融合趋势。     

An NK-like model for complexity

The level and nature of complexity is widely regarded as an important determinant of a number of economic, technological and organizational phenomena. A popular modeling tool for the representation of complexity in economics and organizational sciences is the NK model that represents the complexity stemming from the interactions among the elements of a system. This paper proposes an enhanced model for complexity that, though maintaining the core design (and properties) of the NK model, provides a more intuitive and richer representation of complexity, extending its applications and deepening the understanding of its effects on economic systems. The proposed pseudo-NK (pNK) model is defined on real-valued variables, as opposed to the binary variables required by NK, so as to allow for richer and more intuitive definitions of distance and search strategies. It also admits as a source of complexity not only the number of interactions, as in NK, but also their intensity, opening a novel way to express and measure the level of complexity. Finally, instead of relying on statistical properties of a large dataset of random values, pNK is defined as a deterministic function, far simpler to implement, to interpret and to calibrate for specific requirements. The paper replicates known results and presents original ones; in both cases, the proposed model proves a powerful tool for the investigation of the role of complexity, particularly in agent-based models.     

Modeling System Complexity in the Context of Geopolitics Related to Climate Change

Due mainly to the evolution of science and technology, ontic systems have continuously become more complex. Thus, original institutional economics has adopted and advanced the concepts of complex systems. This article further develops complexity concepts and relates them to problems of climate change. Systems complexity is combined with concepts from geopolitics in order to introduce geopolitical analysis about boundaries/borders into complex systems. The addition of geopolitical ideas allows for systems to focus on a designated social and ecological context that fits the problem of interest. The social and ecological components of open geopolitical systems lead to processes that are dynamic and complex. Thus, complex-systems modeling needs the assistance of geopolitical concepts and geopolitical models need to be embedded in complex systems. Each section of the article clarifies its meaning with examples of climate change concerns.     

企业成长的经济理论概述及展望

根据企业成长经济理论的发展演化过程和主要观点,文章从古典经济学、新古典经济学、新制度经济学、后凯恩斯主义、企业制度变迁理论、彭罗斯的企业成长论、演化经济学、管理者理论八个方面对企业成长理论进行了梳理和评价,以期为我国企业成长管理实践提供理论借鉴,并认为利用自然科学新的研究成果——复杂性科学来重新审视企业的成长过程将是一种必然的趋势。     

Soft Science*

The rhetorical nature of understanding in the social sciences is described — a mode of understanding fitting comfortably with sciences such as paleontology, archeology and meteorology. The search for unique, value-free truths is inappropriate as an epistemology. The pursuit of value-freedom has been a major handicap in understanding social dynamics. Value-freedom also rubs off on inferior dynamic performance. More positive images of futures are needed.     

Innovations in meta-analysis and social impact analysis relevant for tech mining

In the social sciences, non-utilization of knowledge is a major problem. Many publications stored in libraries or available on the Internet should be used more than they are now. Conventional approaches like providing abstracts and lists of keywords have proven to be insufficient. For more than thirty years already, meta-analysis is available for the accumulation and dissemination of scientific knowledge. In the social sciences, meta-analysis has been used on a limited scale only, mainly because there still remains a gap between the knowledge available and its application in policymaking. Recently, value transfer has been introduced as an additional method to bridge the gap between available knowledge and the demands for knowledge in new problem areas. Not only in the social sciences but also in the information sciences non-utilization of information is a major problem. It is the mission of tech mining to contribute to a mitigation of this non-utilization. In this article, we will show how tech mining could profit from innovations in meta-analysis and social impact assessment. Special attention will be paid to research on technology generations, research on social change in cohesive social systems showing solidarity at work, and tech mining in support of the Lisbon Strategy of the European Commission.     

Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics

ABSTRACT

Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdrop, a debate is emerging about how network analysis can help address questions that are pertinent to the history of economics. With this paper, we want to push this debate one step forward by offering and discussing five reasons why network analysis should have a future in the history of economics.     

Technological Change, Market Rivalry, and the Evolution of the Capitalist Engine of Growth

In the early stages of Western industrialization, innovation was the domain of individuals who devoted their entrepreneurial talents to the development of a new product or process, typically setting up a new firm in order to take the innovation to the market. Today, commercial R&;D is almost exclusively carried out by corporate laboratories affiliated with manufacturing firms. The corporate R&;D lab, however, did not exist in its modern form until the late nineteenth century. The history of Western industrialization, thus, suggests that a fundamental change in the structure of incentives, and consequently in the nature and the organization of the R&;D process, occurred around the turn of the century. Three questions arise. What is the nature of this change? What economic forces caused it? What are its implications? To answer these questions, I construct a model where this change is endogenous to the evolution of the economy toward industrial maturity. The change in the locus of innovation—from R&;D undertaken by intventor-entrepreneurs, to R&;D undertaken within established firms in close proximity to the production line—results from the interaction of market structure and technological change. This interaction captures the essence of the evolution of the capitalist engine of growth and provides an economic explanation of a “stylized fact” that has received no attention in the theoretical literature. The endogenous market structure generates dynamic feedbacks that shape the growth path of the economy and determine the structural change it undergoes, including the endogenous formation of corporate R&;D labs. The evolution of market rivalry explains when and how established firms become the major locus of R&;D activity.     

Coevolution of economic behaviour and institutions: towards a theory of institutional change

Traditionally, economics has regarded institutions, notably norms and regulations, as fixed or exogenous. Surprisingly few insights on institutional evolution from natural and social sciences have made their way into economics. This article gives an overview of evolutionary theories of institutions in biology, sociology, anthropology and economics. These theories are subsequently compared with non-evolutionary theories of institutions. Next, the insights and approaches are integrated into a framework for analysis of institutions based on the notion of coevolution.JEL Classification: B52, D10, D70, D64, Z13J.C.J.M. van den Bergh     

Evolutionary macroeconomics: a research agenda

In this article, the goal is to offer a new research agenda for evolutionary macroeconomics. The article commences with a broad review of the main ideas in the history of thought concerning the determinants of economic growth and an introduction to the evolutionary perspective. This is followed by a selective review of recent evolutionary approaches to macroeconomics. These approaches are found to be somewhat disconnected. It is argued that the ‘micro-meso-macro’ approach to economic evolution is capable of resolving this problem by offering an analytical framework in which macroeconomics can be built upon ‘meso-foundations’, not micro-foundations, as asserted in the mainstream. It is also stressed that the economic system and its components are complex adaptive systems and that this complexity must not be assumed away through the imposition of simplistic assumptions made for analytical convenience. It is explained that complex economic systems are, at base, energetic in character but differ from biological complex systems in the way that they collect, store and apply knowledge. It is argued that a focus upon stocks and flows of energy and knowledge in complex economic systems can yield an appropriate analytical framework for macroeconomics. It is explained how such a framework can be connected with key insights of both Schumpeter and Keynes that have been eliminated in modern macroeconomics. A macroeconomic framework that cannot be operationalized empirically is of limited usefulness so, in the last part of the article, an appropriate methodology for evolutionary macroeconomics is discussed.     

主流创新与新流创新协同性研究

基于主流与新流创新交融共生、兴衰更替的动态演进思路,运用协同创新理念,阐述了主流与新流创新协同的条件及动态演进规律,构建了协同度评价指标体系和复合系统协同度评价模型,并以福建海源自动化机械有限公司为例进行了验证。在此基础上,提出了自主创新企业有效把握创新协同度、合理分配创新资源、实现技术跃迁和创新升级的思路。     

农业系统资源配置非线性系统模型分析

农业生产是自然再生产和经济再生产的有机结合的过程,农业系统高度耦合了自然生态系统、社会经济系统等复杂大系统,具有非线性和耗散性等特性。本文应用系统分析的原理和方法,从农业系统的演化运行角度,建立以市场价格和政府控制为基础的农业系统资源配置的非线性系统动力学模型,并指出资源配置应该从系统演化的角度进行考虑,这有助于资源流向合理有效配置的方向。最后以江苏为例分析验证。     

城市扩张情景模拟下绿地生态网络 构建与优化研究——以南京市部分区域 为例

：绿地生态网络对维护城市生态结构稳定有极其重要 的作用,其网络结构与城市发展、扩张及结构演化在时空层面 有动态的耦合关系。现阶段绿地生态网络构建多处于一种静态 的构建与优化思路中,忽视了城市化过程中自然与城市间的动 态变化。从风景园林学视角出发,以南京市部分区域为例,通 过多期遥感数据,基于CA-Markov模型模拟城市未来发展情 景,并在过去、现在和未来各时期用地分类基础上,对城市动 态扩张演变下的绿地空间与其所形成的生态网络进行研究,以 期构建适用现在、面向未来的绿地生态网络,将丰富城市绿地 生态网络研究新思路,并为中国风景园林建设和绿地系统规划 提供技术支撑。     

从技术知识观到技术演化观:一种新的分析范式

技术知识观是目前技术分析的主流范式,但仍有不少严重缺陷。技术演化观虽然还有诸多分歧和争论,却已经表现出强大的理论整合力和现实解释力,也直接契合了自然科学革命性的进展和哲学的发展方向,主流分析范式从技术知识观转变为技术演化观是理论发展的必然趋势。     

How Love Evolved from Sex and Gave Birth to Intelligence and Human Nature

This article argues that emotional attachment drive has shaped the evolution of human intelligence, interpersonal relationships and culture. The first section is about the evolution of social bonds and their role in the rise of intelligence. At the outset, I present evidence that desire for emotional closeness to others is a primary human instinct. Recent discoveries in neurobiology are then incorporated into a summary of the evolution of brain systems that activate emotional attachments and the vital role of parental nurture in the development of offspring's social behavior and capacity to cope with stress. The evolution of maternal behavior is discussed as a particularly important event enabling expansion of brain size and complexity and initiating a pattern of mutually enhancing co-evolution between social complexity and intelligence leading ultimately to the modern human brain. The second section examines how emotional attachment drive may have contributed to the evolution of prominent aspects of human nature and culture. It is hypothesized that the evolution of unique human mental abilities provided vast new outlets for and means of expressing emotional attachment leading to much closer and more diverse interpersonal relationships and the rise and transmission of culture. These developments were very likely important for increasing the adaptive advantages and decreasing the dangers of high intelligence. Emotional bonding between human sex partners was probably selected for because the slow maturation, complex cognitive and psychological development and culture acquisition needs of children required more parental attention for much longer periods compared to offspring of other primate species. Integration of attachment motivation and high intelligence is hypothesized to have been important in the selection of hominid species that were the immediate ancestors of modern humans.     

“新法律史”如何可能——美国的中国法律史研究新动向及其启示

二十世纪九十年代以来,美国的中国法律史研究取得了引人注目的新进展,先前论著中某些关于传统中国法律的旧见陈说,均在不同程度上得到反省和批判。而引领此一学术风潮的代表,正是以黄宗智教授为核心的加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶校区（UCLA）中国法律史研究群,他们的研究共同体现了“新法律史”的特征：在“历史感”的观照之下,连接经验（广泛利用极富学术价值的诉讼档案）与理论（从优秀社会科学理论中汲取灵感并与之真正对话）,提炼自己具有启发性的新的中层概念。对于中国学者而言,“新法律史”所体现的学术取向可以为我们提供重要启示,不仅包括提醒我们注重对诉讼档案的充分运用,以及吸收优秀的社会科学成果,还包括借历史之光洞见现实问题,从而在某种程度上摆脱中国法律史研究虚学化的困境。     

Sustaining sustainability science: The role of established inter-disciplines

The establishment of new interdisciplinary fields such as ecological economics, human ecology or technology assessment can be interpreted as a logical consequence of striving for new sustainability sciences that address current global, multi-dimensional and multi-scale challenges. These set out to bridge the gap between the natural and the social sphere, between scientific analysis and societal action. This paper aims at re-assessing the contribution of established inter-disciplines to sustainable development. Journal articles of ecological economics, technology assessment and science and technology studies are evaluated and compared along several proposed features of sustainability science. The results converge in two crucial aspects. (1) Concise societal or political recommendations are not part of present day ‘normal science’, be it a disciplinary or an explicitly interdisciplinary research context. (2) Participatory exercises are rarely applied as a socio-politically embedded practice, despite a high interest in such exercises as an object of study and discussion.     

Regional innovation and competitiveness in a dynamic representation

This paper combines the various strands of literature on knowledge and innovation as drivers of regional growth in an evolutionary model, representing the internal dynamics of a regional system focusing on Arthurian dynamic increasing returns to scale. The model shows how different evolutionary patterns can arise starting from identical local systems, and that the effects of policies are different depending on the state of the system. Simulation evolutionary economic geography models also allow to represent the complexity of spatial economic development without radically simplifying it and to formalize concepts which are otherwise only expressed—by economic geographers—as logical arguments.