Evolutionary economics: In defence of 'vagueness'

Matthias Klaes

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2004, vol. 11, issue 3, 359-376

Abstract: Evolutionary economics is an increasingly influential but vaguely defined field of economic research. This article discusses different ways of defining evolutionary economics: at its object level, at the level of core concepts and, distinguishing between meaning determinist and meaning finitist interpretations, as a social institution. A meaning finitist interpretation of 'evolutionary economics', referring to evolutionary economics as a social institution, is suggested to provide a positive account of the diversity of attempts to define evolutionary economics, drawing from an evolutionary framework of the diffusion of labels denoting fields of research.

Keywords: evolutionary-economics; conceptual-ambiguity; conceptual-vagueness; heterodox-economics; meaning-finitism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1350178042000252992 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Evolutionary economics: In defence of ‘vagueness’ (2004)
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:taf:jecmet:v:11:y:2004:i:3:p:359-376

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJEC20

DOI: 10.1080/1350178042000252992

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Methodology is currently edited by John Davis and D Wade Hands

More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().