Applied Evolutionary Economics

‘. . . this book aims at a double objective: contributing to the specific issues dealt with in the chapters, and proposing an agenda for the development of an evolutionary economics methodology, which the chapters support but as examples and as tests. On both these respects the book can be considered a success. The individual contributions constitute a good sample of the very frontier of their respective fields.’
– JASSS Review of Applied Evolutionary Economics

The expert contributors to this book examine recent developments in empirical methods and applied simulation in evolutionary economics. Using examples of innovation and technology in industry, it is the first book to address the following questions in a systematic manner:

• Can evolutionary economics use the same empirical methods as other research traditions in economics?
• Is there a need for empirical methods appropriate to the subject matter chosen?
• What is the relationship between appreciative theorising, case studies and more structured empirical methods?
• What is the relationship of modelling and simulation to empirical analysis?

Evolutionary economics is a relatively new research tradition and a book such as this, which discusses the need for empirical and simulation methods appropriate to evolutionary economics, will be of great interest to researchers of evolutionary economics and technological innovation.

Contents: 1. Introduction Part I: Empirical Studies 2. Technological Paradigms and the Evolution of Networks: Lessons from the Pharmaceutical Industry 3. Increasing Returns and Network Structure in the Evolutionary Dynamics of Industries 4. The Evolution of Specialization: Public Research in the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries 5. Evolutionary Patterns of Innovation and Product Life Cycle: Empirical Evidence from the Electric Motors Industry 6. Coping Collectively with the Exploration–Exploitation Trade-off in Research Consortia: The Case of Advanced Batteries for Electric Vehicles 7. Innovation Direction and Persistence within an Industry: The Refining Processes Case 8. An Evolutionary View on Persistence in Innovation: An Empirical Application of Duration Models Part II: Simulation Studies 9. Twin Peaks: What the Knowledge-based Approach Can Say about the Dynamics of the World Income Distribution 10. ‘Leaping Across the Mountains, Bounding Over the Hills’: Punctualism and Gradualism in Economic Development 11. Unlocking a Lock-in: Towards a Model of Technological Succession 12. Selection and the Learning Curve Index