The Korean Journal of Economic Studies
Is Economic Evolution Darwinian? Reinterpretation of the Methodological Controversies over Universal
Pil Kyoo Jo(Hanbat National University)Year 2011Vol. 59No. 4
Abstract
This paper aims to appraise the methodological controversies in evolutionary economics, and to suggest that we should be able to account for the economic evolutionary mechanisms if we are to answer what the nature of economic evolution is. We can understand how economic evolution proceeds in reality by explaining the economic evolutionary mechanisms as feedback loops of cumulative causation of the economic events. In this sense, adaptive learning, which should be regarded as an economic evolutionary mechanism, deserves some attention. It is not found in biology evolution, but only socio-economic one. And therefore, economic evolution should be said to have the distinct mechanisms which are neither Darwinian nor Lamarckian.