Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Generalized Darwinism and evolutionary
economic geography
Jürgen Essletzbichler and David L
.
Rigby
1. Introduction
Over the last few years evolutionary metaphors and concepts have become increasingly
popular with economic geographers (Amin, 1999; Barnes, 1997; Boschma and Frenken,
2006; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Boschma and Van der Knaap, 1997; Essletzbichler,
1999; Essletzbichler and Rigby, 2005a, 2005b, 2007; Frenken, 2007; Frenken and
Boschma, 2007; Grabher, 1993; Grabher and Stark, 1997; Hudson, 2001; Martin, 2000;
Martin and Sunley, 2006, 2007; Rigby and Essletzbichler, 1997, 2006; Storper, 1997;
Webber et al., 1992). For the most part, however, concepts such as path-dependence and
lock-in have been deployed in a rather ad hoc fashion and the development of a broader
evolutionary approach to economic geography has not progressed very far.
Three major points of departure in the theoretical development of evolutionary
economics are readily identii ed in economic geography, including complexity theory
(Frenken, 2006; Martin and Sunley, 2007; Plummer and Sheppard, 2006), path- depend-
ence (Martin and Sunley, 2006) and generalized Darwinism (Essletzbichler and Rigby,
2007; Rigby and Essletzbichler, 1997). Each of these approaches emphasizes dif erent
moments of the evolutionary process. Complexity theory focuses on the creation of
variety, path-dependence stresses the retention of existing information and knowledge,
and generalized Darwinism examines how a population of heterogeneous entities evolve
through interaction among themselves and with the environment that they help shape.
In this chapter we outline a general approach to economic geography based on gen-
eralized Darwinism. We focus on this approach because we believe that it is consistent
with, yet more general than, approaches based on complexity or path-dependence. In
the following section we discuss the basic principles of evolutionary economics. We then
explore an evolutionary model of economic dynamics where economic agents are located
in dif erent geographical spaces. We seek to show how competition between those
agents, based on the core evolutionary principles of variety, selection and continuity,
may produce distinct economic regions sharing properties that dif erentiate them from
elsewhere. The competitive dynamics of agents
in
regions are then linked to the dynamics
of
regions.
2. Evolutionary economics: basic principles and concepts
Modern evolutionary economic theory emerged in the 1970s largely in opposition to the
core assumptions of mainstream, neoclassical economics (Nelson and Winter, 1974).
Evolutionary economics targeted issues that neoclassical theory seemed least capable of
explaining in depth, namely economic growth (Nelson, 1995; Nelson and Winter, 1982;
Verspagen, 2001), technological change (Arthur, 1983, 1989, 1994; David, 1985; Dosi,
1982; Dosi et al., 1988; Pavitt, 2005), industrial evolution (Klepper, 2001; Klepper and
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