The firm as a Darwin machine:How Generalized Darwinism can further the developmentof an evolutionary theory of economic growth

The debate on the ontological foundations of evolutionary economics has reached a stagewhere discussions of these foundations are increasingly leading to the conclusion that there isa need to move from considerations of the general principles of evolutionary theory to thedevelopment of concrete middle-range theories of specific economic phenomena. The purposeof this paper is to engage in such an exercise. I explore to what extent the general principles ofgeneralized Darwinism can further the development of an evolutionary theory of economicgrowth. I will demonstrate the value of generalized Darwinism in two steps. First, by showinghow its explanatory logic helps identify some limitations in the seminal theories of economicgrowth developed by Schumpeter, Penrose, and Nelson and Winter. Second, by showing howthe Darwinian logic helps integrate the strengths of these three theories. The result of thisexercise is a theory of the firm as a Darwin machine that better captures the interplay ofagency and structure in the accumulation of productive knowledge, which is central to thephenomenon of economic growth that Schumpeter, Penrose, and Nelson and Winter set out toexplain.