Geography Reference
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from generalised Darwinism, especially those of variety, selection, novelty and retention
(see, for example, Metcalfe, 2005; Witt, 2003). By comparison, complexity theoretic
ideas have received less attention, although the potential of this approach is increasingly
recognised, with some authors linking complexity concepts explicitly with the analysis
of economic evolution (e.g. Beinhocker, 2006; Foster, 2005; Potts, 2000; Rosser, 2009).
The third approach, based on path dependence, and based especially on the writings of
Paul David and Brian Arthur, is concerned with giving economics a prominent historical
dimension, and has been a key ingredient of many versions of evolutionary economics.
Although distinctive frameworks, there are overlaps between the three approaches, and
hybrid frameworks that combine elements from two or all three.
Likewise, in evolutionary economic geography it has been the generalised Darwinism
perspective that has been most frequently invoked, closely followed by the path depend-
ency approach: by comparison, complexity theoretic notions have yet to be explored in
any concerted way. The basic contours of an evolutionary model of economic dynam-
ics based on the principles of generalised Darwinism are outlined by Essletzbichler and
Rigby in Chapter 2. Employing the core evolutionary principles of variety, selection and
retention (continuity), they argue that competition between agents located in dif erent
geographical spaces may produce distinct economic regions. While certainly not being
units of selection, regions can be conceptualised as
selection environments
within which,
and across which, evolutionary processes operate. The authors claim that evolutionary
economic geography should focus on the evolution of a population of agents within a
single region, as well as on the evolution of dif erent regions that might, or might not,
af ect the dynamics of each other's populations. These arguments are extended to illus-
trate how emergent properties of economic agents and places co-evolve and lead to dif-
ferent trajectories of economic development over space. While there remain numerous
issues to be resolved and elaborated, as these authors demonstrate, an approach based on
notions and principles derived from generalised Darwinism of ers economic geographers
a theoretically rich framework for the analysis of change within the economic landscape.
It certainly is a framework that informs many of the chapters in this handbook.
Perhaps the most often used notion used in economic geographic work that has sought
to take history seriously in studies of regional development is that of path dependence,
that is the idea that the economic landscape does not tend towards some (predei ned)
unique equilibrium state or coni guration, but is an open system that evolves in ways
shaped by its past development paths. As Martin and Sunley (2006) argued in their
extensive review of the notion, the idea of path dependence has been taken as a fun-
damental principle of economic evolution by numerous economic geographers. But as
Martin and Sunley argued in that work, and even more forcefully in Chapter 3, this
assumption is by no means unproblematic. For one thing, there is the problem of dei n-
ing what it is about regional economies that follows a path dependent trajectory of
development - the region's i rms, its industries or the regional economy as a whole? Can
multiple paths co-exist, and how do they interact? Second, what are the processes that
allegedly engender path dependence in the economic landscape? Further, where do new
paths come from, and why do they emerge where they do? And how do old paths come to
an end? These questions have not received the critical attention they require. Martin and
Sunley's (2006) extensive discussion sought to stimulate just that sort of discussion. Here,
however, they are explicitly concerned to elucidate the question of what sort of evolution
