Several social scientists, including `evolutionary economists', have expressed scepticism of `biological analogies' and rejected the application of `Darwinism' to socio-economic evolution. Among this group, some have argued that self-organisation is an alternative to biological analogies or...

This paper applies a floating-point genetic algorithm to an insurance model in which the principals who underwrite insurance contracts cannot observe the risk characteristics of the agents who sign those contracts. Under perfect rationality, the equilibria of this model are analogous to those in...

In modeling expectation formation, economic agents are usually viewed as forming expectations adaptively or in accordance with some rationality postulate. We offer an alternative nonlinear model where agents exchange their opinions and information with each other. Such a model yields multiple...

The present article provides a minimal description of the causal structure of economic selection theory and outlines how the internal selection dynamics of business organisations can be reconciled with selection in competitive markets. In addition to generic similarity in terms of the Darwinian...

To make intangibles more `tangible' for empirical analysis, statistical cluster techniques are applied in the development of two new taxonomies of manufacturing industries. The first focuses on the distinction between exogenous, location dependent comparative cost advantages, such as the...

When the dependency ratio inactive/active increases to intolerable proportions, the question arises as to how and when pay-as-you-go social security systems can be controlled so as to safeguard a decent way of life to everyone. Between uncertainty linked to wages and the interest rate, and room...

Survival of payoff maximization is the usual as if-justification for assuming rational economic agents. An indirect evolutionary analysis allows for stimuli which are not directly related to reproductive success although they affect behavior. One first determines the solution for all possible...

Controlling for capital accumulation from per capita income growth, this paper shows robust scale effects on total factor productivity growth. The estimated speeds of technology catching up are around 2 percent per year. In addition, the empirical analysis confirms the catching up theory, in...