The Rate of Change in Evolutionary Systems and Evolutionary Economic Modeling

Abstract:

Evolutionary economics seeks to model socio-economic reality as an evolutionary system. This powerful approach entails the implication of the continuous loss of information through the evolutionary process. The implication corresponds to evolutionary biology, although the systems in evolutionary economics are different from those in evolutionary biology. The issue of the loss of information has not been extensively studied in economics. Many open questions remain: Which knowledge is lost under what circumstances? Can loss of information be harmful to the socio-economic system as a whole in the presence of runaway dynamics caused by, for example, network externalities? How can the development of knowledge in economic systems be studied? The present article examines these questions and more.

Keywords::

• evolutionary economics
• evolutionary loss of information
• resilience
• technological change

JEL Classification Codes::

• L15
• O31
• O33

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Torsten Heinrich

Torsten Heinrich is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford (UK), and in the Institute for Institutional and Innovation Economics, University of Bremen (Germany).