We investigate a neoclassical economy with heterogeneous agents, convex technologies and idiosyncratic production risk. Combined with precautionary savings, investment risk generates rich effects that do not arise in the presence of pure endowment risk. Under a finite horizon, multiple growth...

Where do new resources come from? We build on the premise that environments feature vast reservoirs of latent resources, uses and resource combinations. However, identifying this value can be costly and difficult. In this paper we consider the thought experiment of an endowment-less firm and how...

This paper considers how ideas from evolutionary theory and the neo-Schumpeterian tradition can be fruitfully combined with ideas from Herbert Simon and the Carnegie tradition on decomposability and cognitive limits. Rather than focusing on any one individual issue, this paper outlines a...

Drawing on the Carnegie tradition, this paper examines how the Greek government and its military apparatus handled an incident involving the islets of Imia, which led to a near-war with Turkey in 1996. This came about not merely as a result of escalating circumstances: there were failures in...

In this paper we address the hard problem of search. Search is a pervasive phenomenon of biological and economic life. But search is hard—especially in uncertain and dynamic environments. We develop a generalized form of question-answer probing as a way of simplifying search, with implications...

Existing research on ecosystems is overly descriptive and structural. While description and structure are important, in this essay we argue for a microanalytic and firm-specific approach to ecosystems. We focus on the “hypothesis-led” firm—the role that a firm-specific hypothesis plays in...

This paper proposes that transaction costs and capabilities are fundamentally intertwined in the determination of vertical scope, and identifies the key mechanisms of their co-evolution. Specifically, we argue that capability differences are a necessary condition for vertical specialization; and...

The literatures on bounded and ecological rationality are built on adaptationism—and its associated modular, cognitivist and computational paradigm—that does not address or explain the evolutionary origins of rationality. We argue that the adaptive mechanisms of evolution are not sufficient...

We propose a 2-country asset-pricing model where agents' preferences change endogenously as a function of the popularity of internationally traded goods. We determine the effect of the time-variation of preferences on equity markets, consumption and portfolio choices. When agents are more...

For several decades, the international community has aspired to integrate the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Yet, no country has achieved the patterns of consumption and production that could sustain global prosperity in the coming decades. Thus, with the...