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Graddy, 1990; Utterback and Abernathy, 1975), the nature of competition and the role
of institutions and routines in guiding individual behavior (Hodgson, 1988; Nelson,
2001; Veblen, 1898). As the approach matured, debates over appropriate foundations
and the style of evolutionary economic theory emerged (Hodgson, 2002; Knudsen, 2002;
Witt, 2004). This section briel y reviews these debates and leads to an outline of the fun-
damental arguments of an evolutionary approach to economic change.
Evolutionary theory emerged from at least three theoretical positions: non-linear
dynamics and complexity theory; path-dependence; and evolutionary biology. The more
recent engagement with evolutionary economics can be traced to the pioneering ef orts
of Nelson and Winter (1982). In part, this work originated in attempts to engage the
selection arguments of Alchian (1950) and to rebuf the 'as if' claims of Friedman (1953),
the search to ground marginalist claims of proi t maximization within an evolutionary
selection framework (Vromen, 1995). However, Nelson and Winter's work became much
more, of ering a model of evolutionary economic dynamics, and standing as a prelude to
the most sustained period of development that evolutionary economics has yet seen.
While most evolutionary economists are united by rejection of the assumptions of full
information and perfect rationality that underpin mainstream neoclassical economics,
they remain far from formulating a common research paradigm, agreement on basic
principles, or even on the best way to carry the framework forward (Hanappi, 1995).
Hodgson (1993, 2002), Knudsen (2002, 2004) and Witt (2004) discuss the dif erent ways
that evolutionary arguments have been extended into the domain of economic activity.
A i rst strategy involves application of the neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection
directly to human behavior, and is closely linked to socio-biology (Becker, 1976; Wilson,
1975). Because humans are products of natural selection, and because economic actions
result from human activity, neo-Darwinians believe that economic behavior should
be explicable on the basis of how it is correlated with the genetic i tness of individuals
(Witt, 2004; p. 127). Because this approach only applies to genetically determined forms
of behavior, because it ignores human intentionality and demands complete separa-
tion of genetic information, or social equivalents, from the selection environment, it
has tended to gather little recent support (Hodgson, 2004; Vromen, 2004). A second
strategy is to make use of Darwinian principles in a purely heuristic or metaphorical
fashion. In this case, dif erent concepts are imported to derive 'metaphoric inspiration'
or to construct analogies between evolutionary biology and evolutionary economics
(see Essletzbichler and Rigby, 2007; Hodgson, 1993). This approach is widely applied
in economics and economic geography, though perhaps a little too uncritically. While
there is little question of the usefulness of sharing ideas across the natural and social sci-
ences, there are concerns with the inconsistency of eclecticism (Fincher, 1983), and with
the too rigid interpretation of analogies across disciplinary boundaries. Witt (2004) also
believes certain concepts that are clearly dei ned in evolutionary biology are impossible
to dei ne in social systems and thus a close or true analogy is unlikely. The most promis-
ing strategy for development of evolutionary economics and its extension into economic
geography is based on generalized Darwinism. Generalized Darwinism asserts that the
core principles of evolution provide a general theoretical framework for understanding
evolutionary change in complex population systems (from physical to social systems),
but that the meaning of those principles and the way that they operate are specii c to each
domain (Hodgson, 2002, 2005; Hodgson and Knudsen, 2006; Knudsen, 2004). Thus, to
