Introduction and Overview

This volume is dedicated to the goal of developing evolutionary economic analysis and associated sets of empirical tools to provide a coherent scientific approach that can deal with the real world of continual change in the economic system. Following on from Foster and Metcalfe (2001), we cast such endeavours in terms of complexity science, as applied in the context of complex adaptive systems in the economic domain. Two key themes can be discerned. First, a complex system is a network structure that contains elements and connections. These connections constitute knowledge and understanding. Thus, a theme throughout the volume is the fact that knowledge is core to economic systems and the source of economic value. Therefore, a clear appreciation of the nature of knowledge in a complex system setting is fundamental to analytical developments in evolutionary economic analysis. Second, selection mechanisms, captured in replicator dynamics, are viewed from a complex system perspective. This brings into clear relief the fact that replicator dynamics do not describe a tendency towards an equilibrium state or, from an empirical standpoint, regression to the mean. Looking at selection mechanisms in this way both emphasizes their relevance and, at the same time, highlights the fact that the variety they operate upon is of prior importance in economic systems because it arises from forms of knowledge that are much less prevalent in the biological domain. As in Foster and Metcalfe (2001), this volume is expansive in its scope, embracing: quite abstract discussion of ontology, analysis and theory; discussions of how we can operationalize notions such as ‘capabilities’ from what we understand as ‘knowledge’; the use of simulation techniques; and empirical case studies. Such a mix is quite deliberate. We believe that any attempt to separate theory from empirical inquiry is both false and likely to lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Only through the constant interplay of theoretical speculation, the development of methodologies and related analytical techniques and the careful observation of complex reality can robust scientific inquiry emerge in the socioeconomic domain. As economics has become more specialized, so these aspects of scientific