In a recent paper, Matthias Kelm (1997) accepts that `Schumpeter's definition of evolution does not contain any Darwinian mechanism such as natural selection or any other biological concept' and that Schumpeter `made no such attempt' to apply `Darwinian theory to economic evolution'. However,...

Advocacy of 'methodological individualism' is widespread, especially among economists. However, the term is rarely defined with adequate precision and some crucial ambiguities are explored in this article. Among these is the commonplace ambivalence over whether explanations should be in terms of...

Caldwell (2001. Hodgson on Hayek: a critique, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 25, 541--55) raises a number of criticisms of Hodgson's (1993. Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics, Cambridge, UK and Ann Arbor, MI, Polity Press and University of Michigan Press) analysis...

Under what circumstances is it necessary or convenient for an agent to rely on habits and rules? This paper focuses on the types of decision situation giving rise to their use. Even optimisation requires the development of rules, and for this reason mainstream economics cannot legitimately...