Is Novelty always a good thing? Towards an Evolutionary Welfare Economics

Christian Schubert ()

Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: Schumpeter’s and Hayek’s view of market coordination as being not about efficiency, but about endogenous change and never-ending discovery has been increasingly recognized even by the mainstream of economics. Underlying this view is the notion of creative learning agents who bring about novelty. We argue that apart from the challenges it poses for positive theorizing, novelty (be it technological, institutional or commercial) also has a complex normative dimension that standard welfare economics is unsuited to deal with. We show that welfare economics has to be reconstructed on the basis of evolutionary-naturalistic insights into the way human agents bring about, value and respond to novelty-induced change.

Keywords: Novelty; Endogenous Change; Preference Formation; Welfare; Justice Length 28 pages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Related works:
Chapter: Is Novelty Always a Good Thing? Towards an Evolutionary Welfare Economics (2013)
Journal Article: Is novelty always a good thing? Towards an evolutionary welfare economics (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esi:evopap:2009-03

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