IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aal/abbswp/04-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multilevel Population Thinking The History and the Use of the Concept in Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Natalia Zinovyeva

Abstract

The concept of multilevel population thinking suggests looking at evolution of any system of entities as at a multilevel process with selection forces operating on populations of units as well as on populations of groups of these units. The concept has allowed explaining some phenomena in biological evolution, but it has not deserved much attention from the majority of adopters of evolutionary theory in economics. There are many reasons for that, and some of them are definitely related to the weakness of the theoretical base developed for studying the statistical properties of complex evolving systems. Moreover, the formal tools already developed to support the concept, being not enough general to describe coexistence of evolutionary processes along the diverse complex structures, unfortunately tend to narrow the generality of the approach. This essay aims to review the history of the development of the idea of multilevel population thinking, to look at the applications of the approach in economics, and to give a critical view on the formal tool, namely, the Price’s equation, that has become common to economists, who analyze complex evolutionary structures.

Suggested Citation

  • Natalia Zinovyeva, 2004. "Multilevel Population Thinking The History and the Use of the Concept in Economics," DRUID Working Papers 04-08, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:04-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wp.druid.dk/wp/20040008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 2002. "Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 23-46, Spring.
    2. Dosi, Giovanni, 1988. "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1120-1171, September.
    3. Sydney Winter & Giovanni Dosi, 2000. "Interpreting Economic Change: Evolution, Structures and Games," LEM Papers Series 2000/08, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Richard R. Nelson, 1995. "Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 48-90, March.
    5. Foster, John, 1997. "The analytical foundations of evolutionary economics: From biological analogy to economic self-organization," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 427-451, October.
    6. John Foster & J. Stanley Metcalfe (ed.), 2001. "Frontiers of Evolutionary Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2234.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luna, Ivette & de Souza Luz, Manuel Ramón & Hiratuka, Celio & Fracalanza, Paulo Sérgio, 2015. "Variação da produtividade do trabalho numa perspectiva evolucionária: aplicação da equação de Price para análise da indústria de transformação no Brasil entre 2007 e 2011 [Changes in labour product," MPRA Paper 78198, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2010. "Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Sandra Silva, 2009. "On evolutionary technological change and economic growth: Lakatos as a starting point for appraisal," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 111-135, February.
    3. Fulvio Castellacci, 2007. "Evolutionary And New Growth Theories. Are They Converging?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 585-627, July.
    4. Richard Arena, 2017. "Schumpeter and Schumpeterians on competition: some policy implications," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 161-186, January.
    5. Fritz Rahmeyer, 2010. "A Neo-Darwinian Foundation of Evolutionary Economics. With an Application to the Theory of the Firm," Discussion Paper Series 309, Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics.
    6. Nicole J. Saam, 2005. "The Role of Consumers in Innovation Processes in Markets," Rationality and Society, , vol. 17(3), pages 343-380, August.
    7. Castellacci, Fulvio & Grodal, Stine & Mendonca, Sandro & Wibe, Mona, 2005. "Advances and challenges in innovation studies," MPRA Paper 27519, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Américo Tristão Bernardes & Ricardo Machado Ruiz & Leonardo Costa Ribeiro & Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque, 2006. "Modeling economic growth fuelled by science and technology," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG td294, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    9. Attila Havas, 2002. "Does Innovation Policy Matter in a Transition Country? – The case of Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0205, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    10. Werner Hölzl, 2005. "The evolutionary theory of the firm: Routines, complexity and change," Working Papers geewp46, Vienna University of Economics and Business Research Group: Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness.
    11. Eckardt, Martina, 1999. "The Evolution of the German Tort Law in the 19th Century - An Economic Analysis of the Evolution of Law," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 23, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    12. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2003. "The Mystery of the Routine. The Darwinian Destiny of An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 54(2), pages 355-384.
    13. Sandra Silva & Aurora Teixeira, 2009. "On the divergence of evolutionary research paths in the past 50 years: a comprehensive bibliometric account," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 605-642, October.
    14. Ruttan, Vernon W., 1996. "Sources Of Technical Change: Induced Innovation, Evolutionary Theory And Path Dependence," Bulletins 12974, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    15. Kotsemir, Maxim & Meissner, Dirk, 2013. "Conceptualizing the Innovation Process – Trends and Outlook," MPRA Paper 46504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Havas, Attila, 2004. "EU Enlargement and Innovation Policy in Central European Countries: The case of Hungary," MPRA Paper 69872, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Gigante, Anna Azzurra, 2016. "“Reviewing Path Dependence Theory in Economics: Micro–Foundations of Endogenous Change Processes”," MPRA Paper 75310, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kylaheiko, Kalevi, 1998. "Making sense of technology: Towards a synthesis between neoclassical and evolutionary approaches," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 319-332, September.
    19. Sandra Tavares Silva & Aurora A.C. Teixeira, 2006. "An evolutionary model of firms' institutional behavior focusing on labor decisions," FEP Working Papers 227, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    20. Ríos-Núñez, Sandra M. & Coq-Huelva, Daniel & García-Trujillo, Roberto, 2013. "The Spanish livestock model: A coevolutionary analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 342-350.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Biological analogy in economics; multilevel selection; Price’s equation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:04-08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://www.druid.dk/ .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Keld Laursen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.druid.dk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.