Change manifests itself in all facets of the economy. This important collection of previously published essays illustrates how the evolutionary approach can reveal not only where change comes from, and how it happens, but also where it will lead.

Evolutionary economics is a vital, expanding field of research focusing on the incessant transformation of the economy and its driving forces. Exploring the most recent research trends in the field, this volume presents a high quality set of papers indispensable to scholars and researchers...

Modern economies are constantly evolving. How is this transformation process caused? What are its characteristics? Where will it lead us? Ulrich Witt outlines an evolutionary way of thinking about these questions. He points out that while evolution in nature is adaptation to changing...

This authoritative collection of articles presents the most significant contributions from pioneering pieces to recent research papers. It documents a broad range of problems and a variety of methods that are characteristic of the evolutionary approach. A new introductory chapter surveys the...

Organizational routines coordinate the interactions and use of knowledge within firms. Efficient routines can imply a competitive advantage for a firm, deficient ones a disadvantage. This depends not only on how smoothly the intra-organizational interactions are in fact orchestrated, but also on...

Strong growth in disposable income has driven, and is still driving, consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. To explain the dynamic interplay of needs, need satisfaction, and innovation underlying that growth a behavioral theory of consumption is suggested and discussed with...

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 inevitably. Another...

Economic development and growth are driven by the emergence of new technologies, new products and services, new institutions, new policies, and so on. Important though it is, the emergence of novelty is not well understood. Epistemological and methodological problems make it a difficult research...

How can economic theory explain the reasons why consumers adopt innovations? Using the example of innovations in washing machines two approaches are compared. The first focuses in the manner of household production theory on changes in constraints without specifying preferences, leading to the...