Complexity and emergence in economics: the road from Smith to Hayek (via Marshall and Schumpeter)

J. Stanley Metcalfe ()
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J. Stanley Metcalfe: Manchester Institute of Innovation Research and Centre for Business Research Cambridge University

History of Economic Ideas, 2010, vol. 18, issue 2, 45-76

Abstract: The purpose or this essay is to make the connection between the idea of complexity and the work of four major economists, Smith, Marshall, Schumpeter and Hayek. The bridge is provided by innovation, in the form of emergent novelties, and the division of labour in the form of a system of parts and connections. A major role in complexity analysis is played by the uneven growth of knowledge, and by the rules which simultaneously establish economic order while generating challenges to the prevailing order in the form of invading innovations.

Date: 2010
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