Understanding Economic Change: Advances in Evolutionary Economics

Although the economy has always been changing, ever more innovations now seem to accelerate the transformation process. Are there any laws governing the incessant global change? Does it accord with our intentions and desires and make us happier? Do our institutions and our democracies cope with the challenges? How does economic theory explain what is going on? In this volume, experts in the field discuss the advances that evolutionary economics has made in exploring questions like these. The broad range of topics include a review of the development of the field: its conceptual and methodological characteristics are outlined; problems posed by macroeconomic evolution and the institutional challenges are highlighted; and, last but not least, the implications of the evolution of the economy for wellbeing and sustainability are addressed. Taken together, the contributions demonstrate the potential of an evolutionary paradigm for making sense of economic change and for assessing its consequences.

Ulrich Witt is Past Director of the Evolutionary Economics Group at the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Jena, Germany. He has published a vast number of articles and books on evolutionary economics and is Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Bioeconomics.

Andreas Chai is an applied economist and Head of Economics and Business Statistics at Griffith University, Australia. Andreas has published in various economic journals, including the Journal of Economic Perspectives and the Cambridge Journal of Economics.