Forms of Emergence and the Evolution of Economic Landscapes

Ronald Martin and Peter Sunley ()

No 1116, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Over the past two decades, the notion of ÔemergenceÕ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social sciences, as par of a growing interest in the applicability of complexity theory to socio-economic-political systems. Within this context, as economic geographers, our concern in this paper is with the usefulness of the idea of emergence for studying the economic landscape and its evolution. We examine three ÔordersÕ of emergence, and focus attention especially on the third type, Ôdevelopmental or evolutionaryÕ emergence. Despite its limitations, the notion of third order emergence is a potentially valuable organizing concept in economic geography. It provides a framework for exploring how it is that the spatial forms of the economy - clusters, regions, firm networks and so on Ð are recursively related to economic action.

Keywords: Emergence; Supervenience; Downward causation; Evolution; Economic landscape (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B15 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2011-08, Revised 2011-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-geo, nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1116.pdf Version August 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:1116

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