This article aims to provide some elements of an evolutionary theory of property rights. It applies a systems-based capital-theoretic perspective to explain the formation and transformation of property rights structures. The approach emphasizes how entrepreneurs create capital combinations by...

The claim that the Darwinian paradigm of blind-variation-and-selective-retention can be generalized from the biological to the socio-cultural realm has often been questioned because of the critical role played by human purposeful design in the process of cultural evolution. In light of the issue...

This paper examines the evolution of the patterns of specialisation of 11 Euro area countries in the period 1990–2008, by analysing their comparative and technological advantages. We estimate conditional densities and Markov transition probabilities to examine both the external shape of the...

Schumpeter’s forecast in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (<CitationRef CitationID="CR52">1942</CitationRef>) that ‘a socialist form of society will inevitably emerge from an equally inevitable decomposition of capitalist society’ did great damage to his reputation. This was especially so after the fall of the Berlin wall,...</citationref>

The aim of this paper is to propose a new empirical method for identifying technologically important patents within a patent citation network and to apply it to the telecommunication switching industry. The method proposed is labelled the genetic approach, as it is inspired by population...

Emergence is a generic property that makes economies become complex. The simultaneous carrying out of agents’ intentional action plans within an economic system generates processes that are at the base of structural change and the emergence of adaptive complex systems. This paper argues that...

A model of the innovation – subjective well-being (SWB) nexus is needed to advance our understanding of the welfare implications of innovation. Building on an earlier contribution by Swann (G. M. Peter Swann, 2009, The Economics of Innovation, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK), I first assemble...

In this research, we apply an ecological model of competition to analyze the effect of deregulation on within industry competitive patterns. Particularly, we identify organizational forms within the population according to two different perspectives: an operational one and an institutional one....

We offer a theory of spinoffs that explains some salient aspects of these important market entrants. In infant industries, a great share of new market opportunities is depleted by firms that spinoff from incumbents. A model emphasizing the relation between incumbents’ evolving corporate...

In this paper I to ask an old fashioned question, “Why do capitalist economies evolve in the way that they do?” The answer will lie, in the nature of human curiosity and the corresponding growth of knowledge and in the particular instituted rules of the game that induce the self...