Evolutionary Economic Geography

Dieter Kogler and Keungoui Kim

No 2619, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) has become a central perspective within contemporary Economic Geography by explaining how regions, cities, industries, firms, technologies, and institutions evolve over historical time. This chapter introduces EEG’s intellectual foundations in evolutionary economics, Schumpeterian ideas of innovation and creative destruction, and geographical debates on uneven development, path dependence, and regional transformation. It reviews the field’s core conceptual contributions around history, novelty, complexity, emergence, and adaptability, and shows how these ideas have informed empirical research on related variety, regional branching, technological knowledge spaces, networks, resilience, path development, institutions, and policy. The chapter argues that EEG is best understood not as a closed paradigm, but as an evolving and plural research programme. Its future relevance depends on explaining not only how inherited capabilities shape regional trajectories, but also how capabilities, relatedness, and path dependence are produced, activated, selected, contested, and transformed. In doing so, EEG offers a powerful framework for understanding how economic landscapes inherit the past, generate novelty, and confront uncertain spatial, technological, social, and ecological futures.

Keywords: Evolutionary Economic Geography; Regional Diversification; Path Dependence; Knowledge Spaces; Uneven Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O18 O33 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08, Revised 2026-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-his and nep-sbm
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg2619.pdf Version August 2026 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:2619

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).