Evolutionary Growth Theory and Forms of Realism

Patricia Northover

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1999, vol. 23, issue 1, 33-63

Abstract: In response to arguable failings in neoclassical explanations of economic growth, R. Nelson and S. Winter have offered the alternative of an evolutionary theory for enhanced explanatory power. In so doing, they have introduced a distinction between 'formal' and 'appreciative' theory that has since been enthusiastically taken up by many. However, are Nelson and Winter's 'formalisms' really any different from a positivistic instrumentalism? In this paper, the author reassesses the fruitfulness of Nelson and Winter's formal theorizing on economic growth and the genuineness of their realist credentials by drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of science, systematized under the heading of transcendental realism. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1999
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