This essay first reviews what Nelson and Winter were trying to accomplish when they put forward An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Belknap Press, Harvard, 1982). It then does a fast-forward to controversies and contributions in the recent past, and speculates on where the intellectual...

Production theory in the neoclassical tradition is strong on Abstract generality. Its high level of Abstraction tends to impede understanding of technological change, partly because its perspective on production differs so much from those of engineers, managers and technologists. A more grounded...

This paper offers a sketch of what an economic theory of the firm would look like if it were founded on the thought of Joseph Schumpeter, particularly on Chapters 1-2 of his Theory of Economic Development. Schumpeterian analysis requires an intuitively appealing and realistic conceptualization...

This study presents a new model of search on a rugged landscape,ʺ which employs modeling techniques from fractal geometry rather than the now-familiar NK modeling technique. In our simulations, firms search locally in a two-dimensional fitness landscape, choosing moves in a way that responds...

This paper shows how idiosyncratic resources can be the basis of sustained profitability and persistent heterogeneity under competitive conditions: Generic inputs purchased in the market become idiosyncratic resources by investments in customization. Analytically, we show how heterogeneous firms...