A Layman’s Guide to Evolutionary Economics

During the last decades we have seen a revival of interest in the works of Joseph Schumpeter and “evolutionary” ideas in economics more generally. This paper presents an overview and interpretation of these developments. Following an introductory discussion of the concepts and ideas (and their origins) the main characteristics of Schumpeter’s own contribution are presented. On this basis we make an assessment of the more recent contributions in this area, the (mostly applied) “neo-schumpeterian” literature that attempts to use Schumpeterian concepts to empirically analyse real world phenomena, and the more formal “evolutionary modelling” literature associated with the names of Sidney Winter and Richard Nelson. Finally we raise the question of how much the different contributions considered in the paper actually have in common (is there a common core?), and what the differences and similarities are when compared to other approaches (particularly the so-called “new growth theory”). 1 A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the conference ”Industrial R&D and Innovation Policy Learning – Evolutionary Perspectives and New Methods for Impact Assessment” organised by Norges Forskningråd (”SAKI”) at Leangkollen, Asker, April 1819.2002. I wish to thank the discussant, Tor Jakob Klette, the participants at the conference and Bart Verspagen for comments and suggestions. Economic support from Norges Forskningråd (”SAKI”) is gratefully acknowledged.