EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Knowledge  Institutions and Evolution in Economics

Download or read book Knowledge Institutions and Evolution in Economics written by Brian Loasby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Schumpeter Prize, 2000 and Winner of the Smith Prize in Austrian Economics, 2000, this book explores how the limitations of human knowledge create both opportunities and problems in the modern economy. The growing field of evolutionary economics has developed as a result of the traditional failure of the discipline to explain certain phenomena that impact greatly on the economy. These are: *Evolution - the impact on the economy of natural change over time *Institutions - the impact on the economy of government and/or company policy, rules and regulations *Knowledge - the impact on the economy that is felt when new information becomes available Knowledge, Institutions and Evolution in Economics is a punchy overview of these topics and one that has become regarded as something of a modern classic that no serious social sciences academic or student should be without.

Book Knowledge  Institutions  and Evolution in Economics

Download or read book Knowledge Institutions and Evolution in Economics written by Brian J. Loasby and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how the limitations of human knowledge creates opportunities as well as problems in the modern economy.

Book The Evolution of Economic Institutions

Download or read book The Evolution of Economic Institutions written by Geoffrey Martin Hodgson and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume documents in a unique manner the momentum the institutionalist, evolutionary research agenda has regained over the past two decades. The thought-provoking contributions come from prominent authors with a rather heterogeneous theoretical background. Nonetheless, they all convene in elaborating on issues that have always been at the core of the institutionalist agenda and show how these issues relate to cutting edge research in modern economics. Ulrich Witt, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany This excellent EAEPE Reader brings together a range of perspectives on the role of institutions in economics. It is very well structured, with parts on microeconomics, macroeconomics, markets and economic evolution. Each part contains chapters written by renowned experts in their respective fields and there is an authoritative introductory chapter by the editor. This Reader is invaluable for economics students and academic economists wishing to better understand how institutions and individual behaviours interact in the economic system. Much of standard economic analysis either ignores institutions or makes overly restrictive assumptions about them the authors in this book show, persuasively, that economics, without an adequate treatment of institutions and institutional change, is of very little scientific worth. John Foster, The University of Queensland, Australia This is a great set of essays. To get the richness they contain, the reader must be already familiar with the broad orientation of the literature on economic institutions. Given that background, I can think of no collection or essays that frame, illuminate, and probe modern institutional economics as well as does this set. Geoffrey Hodgson, who chose the collection, and the authors of the essays, are to be congratulated and thanked. Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University, US It is now widely acknowledged that institutions are a crucial factor in economic performance. Major developments have been made in our understanding of the nature and evolution of economic institutions in the last few years. This book brings together some key contributions in this area by leading internationally renowned scholars including Paul A. David, Christopher Freeman, Alan P. Kirman, Jan Kregel, Brian J. Loasby, J. Stanley Metcalfe, Bart Nooteboom and Ugo Pagano. This essential reader covers topics such as the relationship between institutions and individuals, institutions and economic development, the nature and role of markets, and the theory of institutional evolution. The book not only outlines cutting-edge developments in the field but also indicates key directions of future research for institutional and evolutionary economics. Vital reading on one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing areas of research today, The Evolution of Economic Institutions will be of great interest to researchers, students and lecturers in economics and business studies.

Book Foundations of Economic Evolution

Download or read book Foundations of Economic Evolution written by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ÔThis book is an ambitious intellectual enterprise to build a naturalistic foundation for economics, with amazingly vast knowledge of physical, biological, social sciences and philosophy. Readers will discover that approaches and insights emergent in institutional studies, (social)-neuroscience, network theory, ecological economics, bio-culture dualistic evolution, etc. are persuasively placed in a grand unified frame. It is written in a good Hayekian tradition. I recommend this book particularly to young readers who aspire to go beyond a narrowly specified discipline in the age of expanding communicability of knowledge and ideas.Õ Ð Masahiko Aoki, Stanford University, US ÔCarsten Herrmann-PillathÕs new book is an in-depth application of natural philosophy to economics that draws up an entirely new framework for economic analysis. It offers path-breaking insights on the interactions between human economic activity and nature and outlines a convincing solution to the long-standing reductionism controversy. A must-read for everyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of economics as a science.Õ Ð Ulrich Witt, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany ÔÒBig pictureÓ philosophy of economics drifted into a dull cul-de-sac as it became obsessively focused on falsifiability and rationality. In this book Carsten Herrmann-Pilath pushes the field back onto the open highway by locating economics in the larger frameworks of metaphysics, evolutionary dynamics and information theory. This is large-scale, ambitious synthesis of ideas of the kind we expect from time to time to see devoted to physics and biology. Why should economics merit anything less? But of course this kind of intellectual tapestry must await the appearance of an unusually devoted scholar with special patience and eccentric independence from the pressure for quick returns that characterizes academic life. In the person of Hermann-Pilath this scholar has appeared. No one who wants to examine economics whole and in its richest context should miss his virtuoso performance in this book.Õ Ð Don Ross, University of Cape Town, South Africa and Georgia State University, US ÔHerrmann-PillathÕs work attempts to bring to bear upon the discipline of economics perspectives from other discourses which have been burgeoning recently Ð namely, thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, and semiotics, aiming at a consilience contextualized by economic activity and problems. This marks the work as a contemporary example of natural philosophy, which is now at the doorstep of a revival. The overall perspective is that human economic activity is an aspect of the ecology of the earthÕs surface, viewing it as an evolving physical system mediated through distributed mentality as expressed in technology evolution. Knowledge is taken to be ÔphysicalÕ with a performative function, as in PeirceÕs pragmaticism. Thus, the social meanings of expectations, prices, and credit are found to be rooted in energy flows. The work draws its foundation from Hegel and C.S. Peirce and its immediate guidance from Hayek, Veblen and Georescu-Roegen. The author generates an energetic theory of economic growth, guided by OdumÕs maximum power principle. Economic discourse itself is reworked in the final chapter, in light of the examinations of the previous chapters, naturalizing economics within an extremely powerful contemporary framework.Õ Ð Stanley N. Salthe, Binghamton University, US ÔAn Oscar-winning performance in the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs hard to know which to praise first: Carsten Herrmann-PillathÕs humility or his ambition. He says his book Òis not a great intellectual featÓ because he pursues the Òhumble taskÓ of putting together Òthe ideas of others.Ó When he finally gets to economics he tries to Òbe as simple as possibleÓ and to conceive of economics in terms of the basics, at Òundergraduate level, so to say.Ó On the other hand, the scale of his ambition is to rethink the foundations of economics from first principles, while, at the same time, holding a running dialogue between contemporary sciences and classic philosophy. HeÕs much too modest, of course, because Foundations is a major achievement, but his modesty points to what makes it such a powerful treatise: the book is not about his preferences or prejudices; it is a Òscientific approach that aims at establishing truthful propositions about reality.Ó That is much harder to achieve than grand theories or Òcomplicated mathematics,Ó because it amounts to a new modern synthesis of the field Ð an achievement on a par with Julian HuxleyÕs, whose own modern synthesis of evolutionary theories in the 1940s allowed for the explosive growth of the biosciences over the next decades. The structure of the book is simple enough, providing a framework for the Ònaturalistic turnÓ in economics. Starting from material existence, causation and evolution, Herrmann-Pillath takes us through four fundamental concepts Ð individuals, networks, institutions and technology Ð before coming finally to the Òrealm of economics proper,Ó i.e. markets. However, Herrmann-Pillath believes that the Òfoundations of economics cannot be found within economicsÓ but only in dialogue with other sciences, or what he calls the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs a theatre in which various characters come and go, where dialogue ebbs and flows, conflicts arise and are resolved, and where individual actions can be seen as concepts as, leading to higher levels of meaning as the plot unfolds. The magic of theatre, of course, is that the point of intelligibility, where the characters, actions and narrative resolve into meaningfulness, is projected out of the drama itself, into the spectator. ThatÕs you, dear reader. So it is with economics as a discipline. Economics is a player in a much larger performance about what constitutes knowledge, and how we know that. It is also a player in the economy it seeks to explain. To understand why money, firms, growth, prices, markets and other staples of economic thought emerge and function the way they do, it is necessary situate the analysis beyond economics (and the economy), and to engage with developments across the human, evolutionary and complexity sciences. This is what Herrmann-Pillath does, analyzing a breathtaking range of illuminating and sometimes challenging work along the way. We are treated to new ideas about the externalized brain, the evolution of knowledge in the Earth System (i.e. not just among humans), the role of signs and performativity in these processes, as well as that of Òenergetic transformations.Ó But Herrmann-Pillath is not satisfied with the ÒmodestÓ task of bringing the best of modern scientific thought to bear on economic concepts and performances; he really does harbor a deeper purpose. The clue is in his apparently quixotic desire to hang on to philosophical insights associated with pre-evolutionary thinkers like Aristotle and Hegel, and his apparently eccentric desire to place the semiotic philosophy of C.S. Pierce at center stage. But the patient observer will see that he is not seeking to change the facts by imposing idealist notions on them after the event. Instead, he is arguing for a change in the way we perform ourselves in the face of these facts. He is looking for a modern-day equivalent of Confucius or Socrates: one who can imagine values and beliefs that Òdefine the human species in a new way.Ó For those who have eyes to see, as the drama unfolds, it may be that we have found such a figure in Carsten Herrmann-Pillath himself, modesty, ambition and all. This is ÒCultural ScienceÓ as it should be done.Õ Ð John Hartley, Curtin University, Australia and Cardiff University, UK

Book Evolution and Institutions

Download or read book Evolution and Institutions written by Geoffrey Martin Hodgson and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considers the future of economics as a viable discipline. Along with evolutionary economics, examines the development of economic theory during the 20th century, highlighting the origins and consequences of the field's narrowing and its increasing irrelevance, and suggesting that it will be inadequate to cope with the complex ideas on the horizon. Analyzes some of the attempts to redirect theoretical economics to real world issues, then proposes a move away from mathematical formalization, greater tolerance for different approaches, and learning from biology and other sciences. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book Knowledge  Institutions and Evolution in Economics

Download or read book Knowledge Institutions and Evolution in Economics written by Brian J. Loasby and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how the limitations of human knowledge creates opportunities as well as problems in the modern economy.

Book The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge

Download or read book The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge written by Hans Siggaard Jensen and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge aims to reach a unique understanding of science with the help of economic and sociological theories. The economic theories used are institutionalist and evolutionary. The sociological theories draw from the type of work on social studies of science that have, in recent decades, transformed our picture of science and technology.

Book The Foundations of Evolutionary Institutional Economics

Download or read book The Foundations of Evolutionary Institutional Economics written by Manuel Scholz-Wackerle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generic institutionalism offers a new perspective on institutional economic change within an evolutionary framework. The institutional landscape shapes the social fabric and economic organization in manifold ways. The book elaborates on the ubiquity of such institutional forms with regards to their emergence, durability and exit in social agency-structure relations. Thereby institutions are considered as social learning environments changing the knowledge base of the economy along generic rule-sets in non-nomological ways from within. Specific attention is given to a theoretical structuring of the topic in ontology, heuristics and methodology. Part I introduces a generic naturalistic ontology by comparing prevalent ontological claims in evolutionary economics and preparing them for a broader pluralist and interdisciplinary discourse. Part II reconsiders these ontological claims and confronts it with prevalent heuristics, conceptualizations and projections of institutional change. In this respect the book revisits the institutional economic thought of Thorstein Veblen, Friedrich August von Hayek, Joseph Alois Schumpeter and Pierre Bourdieu. A synthesis is suggested in an application of the generic rule-based approach. Part III discusses the implementation of rule-based bottom-up models of institutional change and provides a basic prototype agent-based computational simulation. The evolution of power relations plays an important role in the programming of real-life communication networks. This notion characterizes the discussed policy realms (Part IV) of ecological and financial sustainability as tremendously complex areas of institutional change in political economy, leading to the concluding topic of democracy in practice. The novelty of this approach is given by its modular theoretical structure. It turns out that institutional change is carried substantially by affective social orders in contrast to rational orders as communicated in orthodox economic realms. The characteristics of affective orders are derived theoretically from intersections between ontology and heuristics, where interdependencies between instinct, cognition, rationality, reason, social practice, habit, routine or disposition are essential for the embodiment of knowledge. This kind of research indicates new generic directions to study social learning in particular and institutional evolution in general.

Book Handbook of Knowledge and Economics

Download or read book Handbook of Knowledge and Economics written by Richard Arena and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'While there is growing recognition that understanding knowledge is at the very heart of economics, little work has thus far been forthcoming representing in a comprehensive and coherent way its fundamental nature and wide-ranging consequences for economic analysis. The editors are to be commended for having filled this critical gap by providing a well-organized collection of outstanding contributions. This rich and greatly needed Handbook is comprised of contributions about the role knowledge plays in the history of the discipline as well as the most significant current developments as we witness them, particularly in the branches of evolutionary, institutional and complexity economics.' – Kurt Dopfer, University of St Gallen, Switzerland Why do societies benefit differently from knowledge? How exactly does social interaction interfere with knowledge acquisition and diffusion? This original Handbook brings together a wide range of differing approaches to shed light on these questions and others relating to the role and relevance of knowledge in economic analysis. By illuminating the philosophical roots of the various notions of knowledge employed by economists, this Handbook helps to disentangle conceptual and typological issues surrounding the debate on knowledge among economists. Wide-ranging in scope, it explores fundamental aspects of the relationship between knowledge and economics – such as the nature of knowledge, knowledge acquisition and knowledge diffusion. This important compendium embraces various fields and traditions of economic analysis and discusses the role of knowledge in 21 papers from outstanding international scholars. Advanced scholars and postgraduate students interested in cross-fertilization between different fields of economic analysis will find this Handbook of considerable importance.

Book The Economics of Knowledge Sharing

Download or read book The Economics of Knowledge Sharing written by Ernst Helmstädter and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Knowledge Sharing claims that useful economic knowledge is the most important foundation for the development of a sufficiently strong process of innovation. Within the framework of new institutional economics, the book looks at the institutional conditions required for the interactive sharing and dissemination of knowledge in the development of economies. It outlines in four distinct parts the complex societal process of human interaction by which knowledge is effectively generated and used. The book first considers knowledge sharing institutions, differentiating between types of interaction and types of actors. Secondly, it examines the economic role of knowledge and cognition, asking how and why human actors gather knowledge. It goes on to revisit historical questions of knowledge and embeds them within the contemporary debate, before finally reflecting on the significant relationship between technology and knowledge sharing in the digital age. Opening up a new area of research encompassing the institutional framework of the innovation process, this pathbreaking volume will be of enormous interest to a wide-ranging audience including economists in the fields of theory, innovation research, new institutional economics, evolutionary economics, history of economic thought, and education policy. As knowledge sharing interactions are akin to other kinds of competition aside from economic, this book will also be warmly welcomed by social and political scientists specialising in a variety of related topics.

Book Evolution and Design of Institutions

Download or read book Evolution and Design of Institutions written by Christian Schubert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book comprises nine papers approaching designed institutions and their interplay with spontaneous institutions from various angles. While the evolution of spontaneous institutions is quite well understood in economic thinking, the development of consciously designed institutions has been examined much less. In new institutional economics, public choice, and law and economics the interaction between changing preferences and spontaneously evolving institutions on the one hand and the evolution of designed institutions (as, e.g., legal systems) on the other hand has largely been ignored. A number of top class international contributors have been assembled to study this phenomenon including Viktor Vanberg, Bruno Frey, Elinor Ostrom and Francesco Parisi.

Book Creation and Transfer of Knowledge

Download or read book Creation and Transfer of Knowledge written by Giorgio Barba Navaretti and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is knowledge an economic good? Which are the characteristics of the institutions regulating the production and diffusion of knowledge? Cumulation of knowledge is a key determinant of economic growth, but only recently knowledge has moved to the core of economic analysis. Recent literature also gives profound insights into events like scientific progress, artistic and craft development which have been rarely addressed as socio-economic institutions, being the domain of sociologists and historians rather than economists. This volume adopts a multidisciplinary approach to bring knowledge in the focus of attention, as a key economic issue.

Book Evolutionary Economics  Program and Scope

Download or read book Evolutionary Economics Program and Scope written by Kurt Dopfer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope offers a fresh look at the paradigmatic foundations and basic theoretical propositions of economics. Twelve authors - each of them with his own distinct contribution to economics - make a step forward by reinterpreting major areas of micro and macroeconomics in line with modern evolutionary thinking. This volume offers a unified approach to economics that allows recent developments in various strands of Evolutionary Economics to be integrated and major positions of Neoclassical Economics to be reconsidered. The chapters on `Evolutionary Macro Economics' explore macro areas such as the division of labor and knowledge, technology and institutions, population thinking, meso economics, techno-economic trajectories and industrial sectors. By telescoping structure into time, they highlight the processes of structural change and co-evolution between technologies and institutions, and provide a causal-explanatory core for a modern - evolutionary - theory of economic growth and economic development. The chapters on `Evolutionary Micro Economics' offer insights into the knowledge based theories of the firm and take up the issues of cognitive and behavioral routines. The contributions explore the processes of complex human choice, creativity, and adaptation in selective and path-dependent environments. The discussions make an essential contribution to the cognitive and behavioral foundations of a modern institutional economics.

Book The General Theory of Economic Evolution

Download or read book The General Theory of Economic Evolution written by Kurt Dopfer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-09-27 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to chart the development of the field of evolutionary economics, this book provides an integrated generic framework to define the rules of an economic system; how they are coordinated and the causes and consequences of their change.Packed with pedagogical features including essay and tutorial questions, case studies and an extensive

Book The Economics of Knowledge  Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy

Download or read book The Economics of Knowledge Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy written by Francesco Crespi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is wide consensus on the importance of knowledge for economic growth and local development patterns. This book proposes a view of knowledge as a collective, systemic and evolutionary process that enables agents and social systems to overcome the challenges of the limits to growth. It brings together new conceptual and empirical contributions, analysing the relationship between demand and supply factors and the rate and direction of technological change. It also examines the different elements that compose innovation systems. The Economics of Knowledge, Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy provides the background for the development of an integrated framework for the analysis of systemic policy instruments and their mutual interaction the socio-political and economic conditions of the surrounding environment. These aspects have long been neglected in innovation policy, as policymakers, academics and the business community, have mostly emphasized the benefits of supply side strategies. However, a better understanding of innovation policies grafted on a complexity-based approach calls for the appreciation of the mutual interactions between both supply and demand aspects, and it is likely to improve the actual design of policy measures. This book will help readers to understand the foundations and working of demand-driven innovation policies by stressing the importance of compent and smart demand.

Book Understanding the Dynamics of a Knowledge Economy

Download or read book Understanding the Dynamics of a Knowledge Economy written by Wilfred Dolfsma and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . . . the topical way in which the subject is discussed makes this book useful also for policymakers or entrepreneurs interested in the subject. It is also appropriate for Masters or Ph.D. students who have a basic background in economics and management. . . [the book] provides interesting and deep analysis of the dynamic of knowledge economy and it is very well written. Francesca Masciarelli, Journal of Management and Governance The knowledge economy is a concept commonly deemed too ambiguous and elusive to hold any significance in current economic debate. This valuable book seeks to refute that myth. Presenting an important collection of views, from a number of leading scholars, this innovative volume visibly demonstrates that knowledge and information are a prime resource in driving the dynamics of an economy. It is argued that in order to understand the knowledge economy a diverse set of insights and approaches are required, which shed new and striking light on the roots of present-day economic dynamics. Using both theoretical and empirical material, this interdisciplinary collection offers a range of micro and macro perspectives. It draws on a variety of scientific backgrounds, and uses and develops a number of different methodologies, some of which may not be familiar in mainstream economics. The approaches adopted by historians, economists, systems theorists, management scholars and geographers which are explored in this book are central to encouraging a new and practical way forward in reading the dynamics of the knowledge economy. In offering these key insights, this important volume makes an invaluable contribution to the lively debate surrounding the knowledge economy. An essential read for economists, this book will also find widespread appeal amongst scholars of management, cultural studies and geography.

Book Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Economics

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Economics written by Kurt Dopfer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-27 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While dating from post-Classical economists such as Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter, the inception of the modern field of evolutionary economics is usually dated to the early 1980s. Broadly speaking, evolutionary economics sees the economy as undergoing continual, evolutionary change. Evolutionary change indicates that these changes were not planned, but rather were the result of innovations and selection processes. These often involved winners and losers, but most importantly, they resulted in actors learning what was and was not working. Evolutionary economics, in contrast to mainstream economics, emphasises the relevance of variables such as technology, institutions, decision rules, routines, or consumer preferences for explaining the complex evolutionary changes in the economy. In so doing, evolutionary economics significantly broadens the scope of economic analysis, and sheds new light on key concepts and issues of the discipline. This handbook draws on a stellar cast list of international contributors, ranging from the founders of the field to the newest voices. The volume explores the current state of the art in the field of evolutionary economics at the levels of the micro (e.g. firms and households), meso (e.g. industries and institutions), and macro (e.g. economic policy, structure, and growth). Overall, the Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Economics provides an excellent overview of current trends and issues in this rapidly developing field.