Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Complexity thinking and evolutionary economic
geography
Ron Martin and Peter Sunley
1. Evolutionary economic geography: in search of conceptual foundations
Over the past few years the outline of a new evolutionary paradigm has begun to take
shape in economic geography (see, for example, Bathelt and Boggs, 2003; Boschma and
Frenken, 2003, 2006; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Essletzbichler and Rigby, 2004;
Hassink, 2005; Lambooy and Boschma, 2001; Martin and Sunley, 2006; Rigby and
Essletzbichler, 1997). Although this paradigm is still in its infancy, certain concepts and
approaches have already assumed a prominent role in geographic-evolutionary inter-
pretations of the economic landscape. In particular, most of the work towards the con-
struction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn on a particular version of
evolutionary economics, which blends Nelson and Winter's (1984) evolutionary theory
of the i rm with neo-Darwinian (evolutionary biology) analogies and metaphors (espe-
cially variety, selection, novelty and inheritance).
1
Without doubt, the neo-Darwinian
approach has been a highly inl uential perspective within evolutionary economics, and
it is therefore not surprising that it has served as a major source of inspiration for evolu-
tionary economic geographers.
But the neo-Darwinian framework is not the only possible one. Nor indeed, is evo-
lutionary biology necessarily the most appropriate source of concepts, analogies and
metaphors (Chattoe, 2006; Wimmer, 2006). In fact, there is debate within evolutionary
economics itself about drawing on Darwinian concepts and the ideas of evolutionary
biology.
2
And this is not a new debate. On the one side, for example, Alfred Marshall
once famously concluded that 'the Mecca of the economist lies in economic biology
rather than economic dynamics' (Marshall, 1930, p. xiv).
3
Others, however, have urged
caution about borrowing ideas from biology. Penrose (1952, p. 819) for instance, argued
that:
In seeking the fundamental explanations of economic and social phenomena in human af airs
the economist, and the social scientist in general, would be well advised to attack his [
sic
] prob-
lems directly and in their own terms rather than indirectly by imposing sweeping biological
models on them.
More recently, even Hodgson (1993), a strong protagonist of an evolutionary approach
to economics, has emphasised that while biological analogies are far more appropriate
than the mechanistic ones that underpin mainstream economics, they have to be used
cautiously. Further, as Lawson (2003) points out, there is the important question of
whether it is ontologically meaningful to abduct notions from evolutionary biology into
the socio-economic realm (see also Chattoe, 2006). In his view this question has yet to be
adequately answered. Others, however, are more optimistic. For example, Witt (2003)
advances a so-called ontological 'continuity hypothesis' of evolutionary economics,
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