This paper sheds new light on the concept of selection in evolutionary economics. The interpretation of natural evolution has experienced significant changes in the last decades, while these developments have been often ignored by economists. This is especially true for the concept of selection,...

Decline and break-up of institutionalized cooperation, at all levels, has occurred frequently. Some of its concomitants, such as international migration, have become topical in the globalized world. Aspects of the phenomenon have also become known as failing states. However, the focus in most...

This paper relates cultural distance and governance structures. We suggest a model of cultural evolution that captures the idiosyncratic socialization dynamics taking place in groups of communicating and interacting agents. Based on these processes, cultural distance within and between groups or...

An evolutionary tool kit is applied in this paper to explain how innate social behavior traits evolved in early human groups. These traits were adapted to the particular production requirements of the group in human phylogeny. They shaped the group members' attitudes towards contributing to the...

The question of what kind of innovations can secure our future is in this paper put in perspective with the unknown risks which innovations may imply. Innovations sometimes turn out to cause severe negative externalities after they have successfully passed the market test. In such cases, the...

Complex adaptive systems consist of a multitude of agents from whose individual adaptation efforts the adaptive behavior of the system as a whole emerges. In this paper it will be argued that capitalism is a complex adaptive system. Except for its particular mode of production many of its...

The fact that innovative capitalism needs institutional co-evolution has widely been recognized with respect to pro-active institutional adaptations. Examples are the rearrangement and safeguarding of supply chains or the creation of public institutions providing indispensable systemic...

In constitutional political economy, the citizens' constitutional interests determine the social contract that is binding for the post-constitutional market game. However, following traditional preference subjectivism, it is left open what the constitutional interest are. Using the example of...

New knowledge with commercial potential is continually created in academic institutions. How is it turned into economically valuable businesses? This paper argues that the transfer is an entrepreneurial process. To understand this, the actions and the constraints characteristic for the...