The intellectual histories of economics and evolutionary biology are closely intertwined because both subjects deal with living, complex, evolving systems. Because the subject matter is similar, contemporary evolutionary thought has much to offer to economics. In recent decades theoretical...

This paper discusses several features of knowledge that are often considered crucial for characterizing the economic significance of knowledge: whether it is overtly accessible or tacit, whether it can be or is encoded or not, and whether it has public or private good character. It is argued...

The emergence of novelty is a driving agent for economic change. New technologies, new products and services, new institutional arrangements, to mention a few examples, are the backbone of development and growth. Important though it is, the emergence of novelty is not well understood. What seems...

In an evolutionary approach to macroeconomics, the market disequilibrium dynamics resulting from structural change need to be properly represented at the aggregate level. As suggested by the late F.A.Hayek, a suitable equilibrium concept required to this end as a frame of reference, is that of a...

Evolutionary economics is a paradigm for explaining the transformation of the economy. To achieve its goal, it needs being founded on a proper theory of economic behavior. The paper discusses these foundations. It is argued that the historical malleability of economic behavior is based on the...

What is special about the evolutionary approach? This question is given quite different, and partly incommensurable, answers in evolutionary economics. The present paper shows how the different answers correspond with, on the one hand, the particular heuristic twists by which the corresponding...

While there is little doubt that innovations drive economic growth, their effects on well-being are less clear. One reason for this are ambivalent effects of innovations on well-being that result from pecuniary and technological externalities of innovations, argued to be inevitable. Another...

An evolutionary perspective on economic behavior has to account for the influences that the human genetic endowment has on the choices the agents make. Likely to have been fixed in times of fierce selection pressure, this endowment is presumably adapted to the living conditions of early humans....

Epistemic arguments play a significant role in Hayek's defense of market liberalism. His claim that market competition is a discovery procedure that serves the common good is a case in point. The hypothesis of the markets' efficient use of existing knowledge is supplemented by the idea that...

Strong growth in disposable income has inflated consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. In this process consumer behavior has been changing. To explain the driving forces of this development, the paper introduces a theory of evolving consumer preferences that is molded in an...