Emergent Properties of the System of Causal Links

Rick Szostak ()
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Rick Szostak: University of Alberta

Chapter 10 in The Causes of Economic Growth, 2009, pp 285-304 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Emergent properties are outcomes of complex systems of interaction that are not easily understood in terms of the behaviors of individual components of the system. The idea is perhaps most readily comprehended in the natural sciences: life forms have behaviors that cannot be understood in terms of any of the chemicals that together constitute that life form. Emergent properties are often surprising: if chemicals could think they would be amazed at the behaviors of the life forms they constitute. In the social world, individuals may interact in ways that generate results that no individual wants or expects. Emergent properties emerge when there are differences among the constituent elements of the system, and when interactions generate both positive and negative feedbacks. This chapter discusses two possible emergent properties of systems of economic interaction: first poverty traps and then business cycles.

Keywords: Business Cycle; Process Innovation; Poor Country; Real Wage; Product Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-92282-7_10

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92282-7_10

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