Economic theory is currently at a crossroads, where many leading mainstream economists are calling for a more realistic and practical orientation for economic science. Indeed, many are suggesting that economics should be reconstructed on evolutionary lines.
This book is about the application to economics of evolutionary ideas from biology.

The background for the present elaboration is twofold firstly the ongoing debate about whether the Marxian theory of value has been damaged or even destroyed by the alleged impossibility of solving the transformation problem and secondly the fact that almost all of the later economic manuscripts of Marx are now …

an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other

This part is devoted to simulation experiments based on the simulation model developed in part I from the value theoretic reconstruction of the main parts of Marx s critique of Political Economy After introducing the main parameters and the range of their variation Section 1 a singular run as well …

Le PIB fait l’objet de critiques régulières. En avril dernier, le Parlement a voté, sur la proposition de la députée Eva Sas (EELV), une loi prévoyant que des indicateurs alternatifs au PIB guident les politiques publiques. Mais le choix de ces indicateurs alternatifs soulève un certain nombre de questions. Par Géraldine Thiry (Université de Louvain, Forum pour d’autres indicateurs de richesse) et Adeline Guéret (étudiante à l’ENSAE, stagiaire à l’Institut Veblen). Le gouvernement français publie cette année, parallèlement au dépôt du projet de loi de finances, un rapport présentant " l’évolution, sur les années passées, de nouveaux indicateurs de richesse, tels que les indicateurs d’inégalités, de qualité de vie et de développement durable." Cette publication fait suite à l’adoption définitive au Parlement, en avril 2015, de la proposition de loi visant à prendre en compte de nouveaux indicateurs de richesse dans la définition de politiques publiques. L’article unique de cette loi prévoit "une évaluation qualitative ou quantitative de l’impact des principales réformes engagées l’année précédente et envisagées pour l’année suivante, notamment dans le cadre des lois de finances, au regard de ces indicateurs et de l’évolution du produit intérieur brut." Cette loi marque constitue donc une première étape dans la remise en cause de la centralité du PIB (produit intérieur brut), comme indicateur central du progrès de notre société. Comme l’explique la vice-présidente de la Commission des Finances de l’Assemblée nationale, la députée de l’Essonne, Eva SAS, à l’origine de cette loi, il est nécessaire de " renouveler la pensée économique " parce que nous sommes entrés " dans une période post-croissance qui nous impose de commencer à réfléchir autrement " (…) " Il faut remettre du long-terme dans les politiques publiques et prendre en compte ce qu’on lègue aux générations futures « . En consacrant son rapport annuel 2015 à la question des nouveaux indicateurs, l’Idies s’inscrit pleinement dans le cadre des missions qu’elle s’est donné depuis son origine : agir pour que soient réunies les conditions nécessaires pour que tous les citoyens puissent accéder à une information économique et sociale de qualité. Le choix des indicateurs rendant compte de l’état de notre économie et de notre société a une dimension technique. Mais il est surtout profondément politique. Il ne peut donc être laissé aux seuls experts et doit au contraire être placée au coeur de la délibération démocratique. C’est toute l’ambition de ce rapport que d’y contribuer.

This article is the first of a series that offers a new paradigm for economics, the “multilevel paradigm,” using generalized Darwinism as its theoretical framework. Generalized Darwinism refers to all processes that combine the ingredients of variation, selection, and replication – not just genetic evolution – making it relevant to the cultural evolution of economic systems that are embedded in political, social, and environmental systems.

Evolutionary economics focuses on economic change. Hence processes of change such as growth, innovation, structural and technological change, as well as economic development in general are analysed. Evolutionary economics often gives emphasis to populations and (sub-)systems.

L’économie évolutionniste se focalise sur le changement économique. En conséquence, sont analysés des processus de changement tels que la croissance, l’innovation, le changement technologique et structurel, ou encore le développement économique en général. L’accent est mis sur les populations et les (sous-)systèmes.

After a brief illustration of sovereign green bonds’ features, this paper describes the market evolution and identifies the main benefits and costs for sovereign issuers. The financial performance of these securities is then analysed.

Hunt (economics, U. of Utah) provides a concise history of the rise and triumph of capitalism, centering mainly on England until 1800 and the U.S. since 1800. He traces the evolution of some of the most significant institutions of capitalism, analyzes the recurring ideological defenses and the radical critiques of capitalism, and examines intellectual developments which were occurring at the same time.

The economic crisis is also a crisis for economic theory. Most analyses of the evolution of the crisis invoke three themes, contagion, networks and trust, yet none of these play a major role in standard macroeconomic models. What is needed is a theory in which these aspects are central.

A comprehensive textbook on contemporary Global Political Economy and its historical evolution providing a broad-ranging and even-handed introduction to the subject by covering traditional elements (such as trade and finance) while also analysing issues such as gender, environment and labour.

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Professor Roger Koppl talks with Hayek Program Research Fellow Solomon Stein about his research on experts, evolution, and the dynamics of epistemics, his career, and in what future direction(s) he thinks Austrian economics will go.

The MINE website explores the interplay between nature and economy. Focusing on such fundamental concepts as time, thermodynamics, evolution, homo politicus and justice, a new outline of economic activity emerges within nature. The dominant approach of Mainstream Economics, which considers nature as a subsystem of the economy, is thus replaced by a broader and more integrated framework. The visual map and its links between concepts provides an orientation. The visitor can approach the content from their own starting point and follow their own path to discovery. Each concept starts with the historical background and moves on through theory and practice. The research behind MINE began in the 1970s at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in an interdisciplinary group spearheaded by Professor Malte Faber, including scientists from economics to mathematics, physics and philosophy. The research has contributed to the field of Ecological Economics. MINE is directed at students, scientists and decion-makers. More on http://nature-economy.de/faq/

"Energy issues have always been important in international relations, but in recent years may have become even more important than in the past due to the widespread awareness of existing limits to energy sources and negative climate impacts. The course discusses global trends in energy consumption and production, various available scenarios for potential developments in the coming decades, the availability of oil reserves and the evolution of the oil industry. It then discusses natural gas and highlights the differences between oil and gas. It will also discuss renewable energy sources, nuclear energy and EU energy policy. The course aims at providing students whose main interest is in international relations a background on energy resources, technology and economic realities to allow them to correctly interpret the political impact of current developments. It also aims at providing students, who already have a technical background in energy science or engineering, with the broad global view of energy issues that will allow them to better understand the social, economic and political impact of their technical knowledge."

This course seeks to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution. The lectures are foundational on neoclassical economics and economist, as well as their roles in the proliferation of capitalist ideology. However, it is less concerned with the ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit more specific objectives.

The leading edges of economic thinking in the early 21st century are marked by a nascent pluralism - a positive valuing of difference and complexity - regarding the nature and evolution of human behaviour and economic organization. Economic Pluralism brings these pluralist sensibilities to the fore.

When Santa Fe Institute Scientists first started working on economics more than thirty years ago, many of their insights, approaches, and tools were considered beyond heterodox. These once-disparaged approaches included network economics, agents of limited rationality, and institutional evolution—all topics that are now increasingly considered mainstream.

Technical change, defined as the manufacture and modification of tools, is generally thought to have played an important role in the evolution of intelligent life on earth, comparable to that of language. In this volume, first published in 1983, Jon Elster approaches the study of technical change from an epistemological perspective.

Thomas Boraud, neurobiologiste, directeur de recherche au CNRS et à l’Institut des maladies neurodégénératives, CNRS-Université de Bordeaux nous expose l'antinomie entre l’Homme comme un animal doué de raisonnement rationnel et sa psychologie au quotidien. Il introduit sa présentation par des arguments provenant de la biologie et de la théorie de l'évolution pour expliquer en quel sens le concept d'homo œconomicus est dépassé et doit être revu au jour d'aujourd'hui. Il expose les fondements du processus de prise de décision (biais cognitif, capacité cognitive limitée...) pour décrire la part d’aléatoire qui est présente dans ces processus. On y apprend que notre appréhension du réel est largement modelée par nos comportements, eux-mêmes contraints par les circonstances de notre environnement.

An overview of the last century economic theories asking what makes a heterodox economist. This lecture focuses on the evolution of the various academic traditions in economics. Lavoie presents his own typology for categorising seminal work within the post-Keynesian tradition while leaving space to acknowledge that categories are not binary, but can be used to help understand the different traditions, and how they have developed over the last decades.

Have you ever thought about the role of civil society and the evolution of economy in one breath? This one hour long interview of Daron Acemoğlu (MIT) and Martin Wolf (Financial Times) by Rethinking Economy NL gives you much inspiration for it.

Institutional economics focuses on the role of social institutions in terms of laws or contracts, but also those of social norms and patterns of human behaviour that are connected to the social organisation of production, distribution and consumption in the economy.

L’économie de la complexité se focalise sur les interactions et les interdépendances entre les individus et les structures dans les systèmes économiques. L‘économie est vue comme un système complexe qui est toujours dans un état de flux, c‘est-à-dire évoluant et changeant en permanence.

Les post-keynésiens se focalisent sur l’analyse des économies capitalistes, vues comme des systèmes certes hautement productifs mais aussi instables et conflictuels. L‘activité économique y est pour eux déterminée par la demande effective, qui est typiquement insuffisante pour permettre d’atteindre le plein emploi et la pleine utilisation des capacités de production.

A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics

From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim an epistemological framework of how scholars study their objects of inquiry and relate their models to reality is discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that given the current institutions of our scientific system, economics self-organizes towards a state of scientific unity. Since such a state is epistemologically inferior to a state of plurality, critical intervention is desirable.

This chapter by the Centre for Economy Studies explores how courses on the history of economic thought and methods could look if they were pluralist and interdisciplinary.

This article explores the production function, the prevailing view of capital that underpins it, and the main alternative perspective. By exploring these perspectives, the authors aim to provide students with a foundational understanding of the controversies surrounding the treatment of capital in production, a topic expressly excluded from mainstream textbooks.

The Philosophy of Economics Foundational Text provides a systematic and well-structured overview over the field of philosophy of economics.

A review of: [1] Intermediate Microeconomics, H.R. Varian [2] Mikrooekonomie, R.S. Pindyck, D.L. Rubinfeld [3] Grundzuege der mikrooekonomischen Theorie, J. Schumann, U. Meyer, W. Stroebele

This course provides future change makers in public and private sectors with a comprehensive overview on the structures and actors that shape markets.