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Understanding the Process of Economic Change (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
Douglass C. North Manufacturer: Princeton University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0691118051 |
Book Description
In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories.
North argues that economic change depends largely on "adaptive efficiency," a society's effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.
Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.
Customer Reviews:
Starts out great but fizzles out.......2006-12-25
Lacks the rigor of his previous books.......2006-10-19
Economic Change For the Business Executive.......2005-11-24
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The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0521621992 |
Book Description
Evolutionary economics is attracting increasing interest as a way of understanding the processes which generate particular forms of economic activities and structures. This collection brings together economists who are at the forefront of this new field of enquiry to provide the most comprehensive and authoritative survey available.Download Description
It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. This volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges, offering an entirely new approach to the foundations of economics.
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An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Belknap Press)
Richard R. Nelson , and Sidney G. Winter Manufacturer: Belknap Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0674272285 |
Book Description
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms.
To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium.
The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.
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Knowledge Emergence: Social, Technical, and Evolutionary Dimensions of Knowledge Creation
Ikujiro Nonaka , and Toshihiro Nishiguchi Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0195130634 |
Book Description
This book brings together the research of a number of scholars in the field of knowledge creation and imparts a sense of order to the field. The chapters share three characteristics: they are all grounded in extensive qualitative and/or quantitative research; they all go beyond the mere description of the knowledge-creation process and offer both theoretical and strategic implications; they share a view of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer as delicate processes, necessitating particular forms of support from managers.Customer Reviews:
A compilation of organisational/international KM practices.......2003-01-23
The material is academic and well-researched; it covers 15 chapters from 19 contributors, most of them professors from US and Japanese universities. The book is the outcome of a KM conference sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
Ikujiro Nonaka is the author of "The Knowledge-Creating Company" and "Enabling Knowledge Creation." Toshihiro Nishiguchi is the author of "Strategic Industrial Sourcing" and "Managing Product Development."
A fundamental thread uniting these essays is the idea that knowledge must be "nurtured" rather than "managed," according to the editors.
The Japanese term ba refers to a space-time nexus, the physical and/or mental space shared by co-workers, whose nature defines the scale and scope of knowledge creation through its various phases like socialization (originating ba), externalization (dialoguing ba), combination (systematizing ba) and internalization (exercising ba).
Care is an important requisite for building trust for knowledge-sharing in an organization. There are four modes of knowledge creation, depending on whether there is low care (individuals are left to their own; employees therefore exchange explicit knowledge) or high care (individuals are supported by a strong social network; tacit knowledge is shared) and whether there is creation of individual or organizational knowledge.
Such humanistic models of knowledge emergence encompass "wandering inside and outside" the organization, and accommodate emotional facets like freedom, interest, commitment, charisma and safety. Notable examples include the Seven-Eleven chain in Japan (through practices like the use of field counselors to encourage dialogue and idea sharing) and Maekawa Seisakusho (through knowledge vision for building and energizing ba).
"Certain types of knowledge can be created and communicated only through sharing time and space together," according to the authors.
New IT platforms and tools along with human-oriented approaches can help greatly in knowledge sharing processes: CAD/CAM/CAE (which improve the efficiency of product developers' inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning processes), simulation (to encourage experimentation), and prototyping (to refine solution models).
The authors call for a blend of human-oriented as well as systematic-rationality-oriented approaches to KM. For instance, companies like Boeing resort to advanced computer networks as well as co-location of project members.
In industries like software ("the quintessential knowledge industry"), the knowledge component in the end-products is nearly total. Companies like Microsoft use a "synch-and-stabilise" strategy (in contrast to a sequential "waterfall" model) where teams work in parallel, synchronise their activities, and periodically stabilize the multiple releases.
Cross-border knowledge creation within multinational companies involves IT platforms, identification of centers of excellence, customer/partner alliances, links with expert organization/universities/thinktanks, and a mix of short-, medium- and long-term movements of people across borders.
Dispersed innovation centers in countries around the globe are leading to joint knowledge creation at local and global levels in MNCs, which thus function as knowledge-creating networks. Nonaka identifies this cross-border synergistic process as "global knowledge creation" and sees it as the key process of globalisation.
Challenges can arise here in enabling knowledge transfers between cultures with differing levels of egalitarian work cultures, and in appointment of managers in foreign branches depending on variations in management style. According to research by Ronnie Lessem and Franz-Friedrich Neubauer, the Anglo-Saxon orientation to knowledge creation can be categorized as pragmatic, the French-Nordic as rational, Japanese as holistic, and Latin as humanistic.
Symbiotic co-evolution of organizations can also create knowledge, as evinced in the Japanese aircraft and electronics industries and the South Korean chip company Samsung.
Cooperation across entire industrial sectors occurs with varying levels of intensity and collective benefits in different countries of the world. For instance, it may be the case that US companies are better at learning from and with competitors than Japanese companies.
Samsung leveraged a variety of techniques like "knowledge catch-up" mode (prevalent in many emerging economies), knowledge pioneering, knowledge exposure, co-opetition, absorptive capacity, migratory knowledge (from the Korean diaspora), M&As, and pro-actively creating internal crises to intensify the work pace and accelerate the process of knowledge conversion, according to Linsu Kim, author of "Imitation to Innovation: The Dynamics of Korea's Technological Learning."
Other cultural factors - such as the extremely hard-working habits of the people of South Korea, its cramped and cold environment, memories of Japanese occupation, and a determination to out-compete Japan - cannot be duplicated in other countries, according to Kim.
In sum, this is an informative and wide-ranging book, and opens the door to many more research questions, working hypotheses, and KM methodologies. It forms an effective bridge between other books that focus either on the organizational or sectoral/national aspects of innovation, knowledge and competitiveness.
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Evolutionary Psychology and Economic Theory, Volume 7 (Advances in Austrian Economics)
Manufacturer: JAI Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 076231138X |
Book Description
Contributors to this volume seriously engage issues in the crossroads where biology, psychology, and economics meet. The volume makes several important contributions to the area and provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Biologist David Sloan Wilson, psychologists Robert Kurzban and C.A. Aktipis, economists Geoffrey Hodgson, Paul Rubin and Evelyn Gick, and jurist David Friedman consider altruism, selfishness, group selection, methodological individualism, dominance hierarchies, and other issues relating evolutionary psychology to economics. Several contributors, such as Viktor Vanberg and Brian Loasby, pay special attention to the role of F. A. Hayek and other "Austrian" thinkers in shaping evolutionary approaches to economic theory. Theoretical biologist Deby Cassill relates her revolutionary theory of "skew selection" in biology to perennial issues in political economy. The volume includes a symposium on group selection and methodological individualism. In an important paper, D. G. Whitman argues that group selection and methodological individualism are "compatible and complementary." Comments from Elliot Sober & David Sloan Wilson, Richard Langlois, Todd Zywicki, and Adam Gifford offer a heterogeneous set of responses to Whitman's argument. Roger Koppl's introduction constitutes a review essay and includes an argument that "Austrian" economists have a comparative advantage in bringing the Verstehen tradition of social thought into contact with recent work in biology and evolutionary psychology.
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The Economy As an Evolving Complex System, III: Current Perspectives and Future Directions (Santa Fe Institute Studies on the Sciences of Complexity)
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0195162595 |
Book Description
Derived from the 2001 Santa Fe Institute Conference, "The Economy as an Evolving Complex System III," represents scholarship from the leading figures in th area of economics and complexity. The subject, a perennial centerpiece of the SFI program of studies has gained a wide range of followers for its methods of employing empirical evidence in the development of analytical economic theories. Accordingly, the chapters in this volume addresses a wide variety of issues in the fields of economics and complexity, accessing eclectic techniques from many disciplines, provided that they shed light on the economic problem. Dedicated to Kenneth Arrow on his 80th birthday, this volume honors his many contributions to the Institute. SFI-style economics is regarded as having had an important impact in introducing a new approach to economic analysis.
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Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution (The Roundtable Series in Behavioral Economics)
Samuel Bowles Manufacturer: Princeton University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0691126380 |
Book Description
In this novel introduction to modern microeconomic theory, Samuel Bowles returns to the classical economists' interest in the wealth and poverty of nations and people, the workings of the institutions of capitalist economies, and the coevolution of individual preferences and the structures of markets, firms, and other institutions. Using recent advances in evolutionary game theory, contract theory, behavioral experiments, and the modeling of dynamic processes, he develops a theory of how economic institutions shape individual behavior, and how institutions evolve due to individual actions, technological change, and chance events. Topics addressed include institutional innovation, social preferences, nonmarket social interactions, social capital, equilibrium unemployment, credit constraints, economic power, generalized increasing returns, disequilibrium outcomes, and path dependency.
Each chapter is introduced by empirical puzzles or historical episodes illuminated by the modeling that follows, and the book closes with sets of problems to be solved by readers seeking to improve their mathematical modeling skills. Complementing standard mathematical analysis are agent-based computer simulations of complex evolving systems that are available online so that readers can experiment with the models. Bowles concludes with the time-honored challenge of "getting the rules right," providing an evaluation of markets, states, and communities as contrasting and yet sometimes synergistic structures of governance. Must reading for students and scholars not only in economics but across the behavioral sciences, this engagingly written and compelling exposition of the new microeconomics moves the field beyond the conventional models of prices and markets toward a more accurate and policy-relevant portrayal of human social behavior.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant synthesis of behavioral microeconomics.......2007-06-19
Very strong, but flawed.......2006-03-30
Demonstrates The Instability of Current Economic Theory.......2005-06-08
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Biologically Inspired Algorithms for Financial Modelling (Natural Computing Series)
Anthony Brabazon , and Michael O'Neill Manufacturer: Springer ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
Accessories:
ASIN: 3540262520 |
Book Description
Predicting the future for financial gain is a difficult, sometimes profitable activity. The focus of this book is the application of biologically inspired algorithms (BIAs) to financial modelling. In a detailed introduction, the authors explain computer trading on financial markets and the difficulties faced in financial market modelling. Then Part I provides a thorough guide to the various bioinspired methodologies – neural networks, evolutionary computing (particularly genetic algorithms and grammatical evolution), particle swarm and ant colony optimization, and immune systems. Part II brings the reader through the development of market trading systems. Finally, Part III examines real-world case studies where BIA methodologies are employed to construct trading systems in equity and foreign exchange markets, and for the prediction of corporate bond ratings and corporate failures. The book was written for those in the finance community who want to apply BIAs in financial modelling, and for computer scientists who want an introduction to this growing application domain.Customer Reviews:
interesting lateral applications.......2007-01-24
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CEO: Chief Evolutionary Officer, Leaders Mapping the Future
AugustT Jaccaci , and SusanB Gault Manufacturer: Butterworth-Heinemann ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0750671386 |
Book Description
This book is about evolutionary leadership and collaborating to create the future of business. Jaccaci is respected as a futurist and a social architect and who presently works with leaders who want to create the most ideal futures for their enterprises. Gault comes out of Digital's Engineering and Software Division where she was a group manager in information design and consulting. Together, they've created a model called "Metamatrix" to create a domain map as a creative vision based based on the dynamics of transformative growth.Customer Reviews:
Evolution is the Only Business.......2000-03-22
1. Evolution is the only business
2. Life is the only customer
3. Community is the only profit
4. Love is the only future
Kudos to Jaccaci and Gault. Heart felt and extraordinary.
Evolution is the Only Business.......2000-03-22
1. Evolution is the only business
2. Life is the only customer
3. Community is the only profit
4. Love is the only future
Kudos to Jaccaci and Gault. Heart felt and extraordinary.
A compassionate view of the future........1999-09-11
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Applied Evolutionary Economics And the Knowledge-based Economy
Manufacturer: Edward Elgar Publishing ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 1843769034 |
Book Description
This book focuses on knowledge-based economies and attempts to analyze dynamic innovation driven processes within those economies.It shows that evolutionary economics, and in particular the strand of applied industry and innovation studies often called Neo-Schumpeterian economics, has left the nursery of new academic approaches and is able to offer important insights for the understanding of socio-economic processes of change and development having a strong impact on economic reality all over the world. The contributions are summarized under four major sections - knowledge and cognition, studies of knowledge-based industries, the geographical dimension of knowledge-based economies and measuring and modelling for knowledge-based economies - and give a broad overview of the prolific research being undertaken in applied evolutionary economics.
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