Institutions and the Evolution of Capitalism

Edited by John Groenewegen, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands and Jack Vromen, Associate Professor in the Philosophy of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

• Contents: 1. Implications of Evolutionary Economics; Theory, Method and Policies 2. What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists – and Vice Versa 3. Discontinuous Changes in Institutional Systems 4. The Legacy of J.R. Commons’ Conception of Economics as a Science of Behaviour 5. Discovery Versus Creation 6. Uncertainty, Intelligence and Imagination 7. The Diffusion of Organisational Innovations 8. The Variety and the Dynamics of Capitalism 9. Understanding Varieties in the Structure and Performance of National Innovation Systems 10. Capabilities, Tacit Knowledge and Systematic Change 11. An Evolutionary Analysis of Technology Policy Index

'This book is an important contribution to the growing literature on evolutionary economics, concentrating, as it does, on the human factor in economic evolution and avoiding the unconvincing arguments based almost entirely on mere analogy with biological processes of much of the writing in this field.'