Books in the Elements in Evolutionary Economics series

This book provides a critical assessment of the theory and evidence concerning the sources of scale effects. The analysis of static scale effects is important because scale effects are embedding in our world.

This Element examines the historical emergence of evolutionary economics and how it has embraced a diverse set of approaches. Its core ideas are compared with those of mainstream economics. Looking to the future, suggestions are made from strengthening its core while addressing the problem of its disciplinary location within academia.

Clarifies and develops how the notion of coevolution can expand the analytical and methodological scope of evolutionary economics, allowing for further unification and advancement of evolutionary subfields.

Dismissing industrial policy because 'governments cannot pick winners' is counter-productive. This Element studying selected major innovations illustrates the fact that virtually all major new technologies have been developed by a synergetic cooperation between the public and the private sectors, each doing what it can do best. By examining how R&D is financed, rather than where it takes place, the authors show that the role of the public sector is much more pronounced than is often thought. The nature of the cooperation who does what varies with the nature of each innovation so that simple, one-size-fits-all, rules about what each sector should do are suspect. These results are particularly important because they challenge the scepticism in the United states and elsewhere about the importance of industrial policy, a scepticism that threatens to undermine the long-term, and necessary cooperation, between the public and private sectors in promoting growth-inducing innovations.