We present the basic mechanisms of Genetic Algorithms and some significant applications of these algorithms in economics. The article also provides a representative reference list on this topic.

The paper analyses Ford and GM\'s globalisation strategies. He discusses the convergence regarding the integration of European and North-American activities, as well as in the changing economical and geographical firms\' boundaries. This paper is part of the GERPISA research programme...

This work seeks to recall recent space logics of three industrial models (within the meaning of R. Boyer and M. Freyssenet): pharmacy, automotive and aeronautics. Using the Economics of Proximities approach, we sustain that the “viable profitability” of the firms depends on their faculty to...

The paper proposes an original institutionalist framework to analyze the dynamics of sectors (or industries), their emergence, their evolution and their possible disappearance. The meso-economic analysis concerns the way by which are institutionalized, within every industry, the relationships [...

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how evolutionary theory can provide an adequate framework for sectoral studies. It sets out the broad outlines of such an approach focusing on key concepts, while suggesting lines of interpretation of industrial dynamics. The concrete illustrations...

This paper is a survey of the literature about the spatial dynamics of firms. In a first part, we discuss about the traditional theories of location. We review the insights of these theories but also their limits. In particular, we stress the necessity to organize a true dialog between the...

The article aims at identifying socioeconomic factors which explain the Chinese famine of 1959-1961. The main hypothesis of this paper is that the radicalism of Great Leap Forward policies generated both a decline of agricultural output (availability problems) and the implementation of an...

The priority for France’s “Grenelle II” environmental legislation is to reduce the consumption of space caused by urbanisation. The best tool for achieving this goal is zoning within a territorial planning framework. Yet zoning also tends to increase property values, due to the scarcity...

The paper aims to develop a methodology of an institutionalist approach of industrial dynamics. Part 1 defines the framework for such an institutionalist approach in the continuity the J.R. Commons’ method. Part 2 elaborates the basis of the project of an institutionalist industrial dynamics...

In the framework of clustering, the usual aim is to cluster observations and not variables. However the issue of variable clustering clearly appears for dimension reduction, selection of variables or in some case studies (sensory analysis, biochemistry, marketing, etc.). Clustering of variables...