The firm as a Darwin machine: How Generalized Darwinism can further the development of an evolutionary theory of economic growth

J. W. Stoelhorst

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

Abstract: The debate on the ontological foundations of evolutionary economics has reached a stage where discussions of these foundations are increasingly leading to the conclusion that there is a need to move from considerations of the general principles of evolutionary theory to the development of concrete middle-range theories of specific economic phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to engage in such an exercise. I explore to what extent the general principles of generalized Darwinism can further the development of an evolutionary theory of economic growth. I will demonstrate the value of generalized Darwinism in two steps. First, by showing how its explanatory logic helps identify some limitations in the seminal theories of economic growth developed by Schumpeter, Penrose, and Nelson and Winter. Second, by showing how the Darwinian logic helps integrate the strengths of these three theories. The result of this exercise is a theory of the firm as a Darwin machine that better captures the interplay of agency and structure in the accumulation of productive knowledge, which is central to the phenomenon of economic growth that Schumpeter, Penrose, and Nelson and Winter set out to explain.

Keywords: Length; 35; pages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://137.248.191.199/RePEc/esi/discussionpapers/2010-19.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Failed to connect to FTP server 137.248.191.199: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

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:esi:evopap:2010-19

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography Deutschhausstrasse 10, 35032 Marburg. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christoph Mengs ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).