Modern Evolutionary Economics: An Overview

Richard R. Nelson · Giovanni Dosi · Constance E. Helfat · Andreas Pyka · Pier Paolo Saviotti · Keun Lee · Kurt Dopfer · Franco Malerba · Sidney G. Winter

May 2018 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

Evolutionary economics sees the economy as always in motion with change being driven largely by continuing innovation. This approach to economics, heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Schumpeter, saw a revival as an alternative way of thinking about economic advancement as a result of Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter's seminal book, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, first published in 1982. In this long-awaited follow-up, Nelson is joined by leading figures in the field of evolutionary economics, reviewing in detail how this perspective has been manifest in various areas of economic inquiry where evolutionary economists have been active. Providing the perfect overview for interested economists and social scientists, readers will learn how in each of the diverse fields featured, evolutionary economics has enabled an improved understanding of how and why economic progress occurs.

About the author

Richard R. Nelson is Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. He served as a research economist and analyst at the Rand Corporation and the US President's Council of Economic Advisors. His most cited publications include his book with Sidney Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982), The Moon and the Ghetto (1977), and National Innovation Systems (1993). He has received the Honda Prize, the Tinbergen Award, the Leontief Award, and the Veblen-Commons award for his research, and has been awarded an honorary degree by several universities.

Giovanni Dosi is Professor of Economics and director of the Institute of Economics at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, and serves as Director of the Industrial Policy and Intellectual Property Rights Task Forces at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. Professor Dosi is a continental Europe editor of the journal Industrial and Corporate Change. A selection of his works has been published as Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics (2000) and Economic Organization, Industrial Dynamics and Development (2012).

Constance E. Helfat is the J. Brian Quinn Professor in Technology and Strategy at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. She has published widely in academic journals and books, and co-authored Dynamic Capabilities: Understanding Strategic Change in Organizations (2007). She is a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society, and has received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management, the Viipuri Prize, and an honorary degree. She currently serves as co-editor of the Strategic Management Journal.

Andreas Pyka is a Professor at the Universität Hohenheim, Stuttgart, where he has held the chair for innovation economics since April 2009. His fields of research are neo-Shcumpeterian economics and evolutionary economics with a special emphasis on numerical techniques of analysing dynamic processes of qualitative change and structural development. He has published numerous articles and chapters on these subjects.

Pier Paolo Saviotti is a Visiting Research Fellow in Innovation studies at Copernicus Institute, Faculty of Geosciences, Universiteit Utrecht. He is author of several publications about the economics of innovation, including Technological Evolution, Variety and the Economy (1996), which was awarded the 1997 Gunnar Myrdal Prize of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economics (EAEPE). He is a member of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economics (EAEPE), of the Lisbon Civic Forum and is Vice President of the International Schumpeter Society.

Keun Lee is a Professor of Economics at the Seoul National University. He has been awarded the 2014 Schumpeter Prize for his monograph on Schumpeterian Analysis of Economic Catch-up: Knowledge, Path-creation and the Middle Income Trap (Cambridge, 2013). He is now the President of the International Schumpeter Society, a member of the Committee for Development Policy of UN, an editor of Research Policy, a council member of the World Economic Forum, and a member of the governing board of Globelics.

Kurt Dopfer is a Professor at the Department of Economics, Universität St Gallen, Switzerland, where he is also Chair of International Economics and Development Theory, Co-director of the Institute of Economics, a member of the University Senate, Emeritus, and a Researcher for the Swiss National Science Foundation. He has published several books and numerous articles in twelve languages and has been a member of the editorial board of several journals, including the Journal of Evolutionary Economics.

Franco Malerba is Full Professor of Applied Economics and President of ICRIOS, Bocconi University. He has published 15 books internationally, including Sectoral Systems of Innovation (Cambridge, 2004) and Innovation and the Evolution of Industries (Cambridge, 2016). He is among the Editors of Industrial and Corporate Change, the Advisory Editors of Research Policy, and Associate Editors of the Journal of Evolutionary Economics.

Sidney G. Winter is the Deloitte and Touche Professor of Management, Emeritus, at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982, with Richard Nelson), and of many articles in scholarly journals and symposia. His honours include the 2015 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research.