Evolution & economics
James Dick
I am interested in using evolution as a metaphor for changes in economies.
Anyone else subcribed to this newsgroup?
JD
Roger Burton West
James Dick <james...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>I am new to this newsgroup and nothing has happened since I joined.
>I am interested in using evolution as a metaphor for changes in economies.
Which sort of evolution? Are you talking about gradual adaptation or
phase changes - or both? Also, what's the evolving agent - the company,
the individual, the generic economic entity?
This sounds interesting.
>Anyone else subcribed to this newsgroup?
Yes. U2 isn't particularly high-volume or high-subscriber.
Roger
Red Drag Diva
:In article <39f14490$0$11631$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
:James Dick <james...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
optusnet.com.au is *so* far off being a sound U2 host. This article leaked
in. Pity, really.
--
http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ http://www.caube.org.au/
"The pluses in my current job include laughing in the face of Nobel laureates
who have just lost the only copy of their data. (Hey, I'm still a BOFH.)"
(Bob Dowling)
James Dick
variation, replication and selection within and between economic agents.
Economists use the words 'economic agent' to be sufficiently vague so that
it can mean what ever we want. Replication is taken to mean the passing on
of 'routines' or institutions, selection (as I see it) is the way that
people or businesses stop doing certain things if they just can't get by (ie
go broke or find something better to do). Variation exists because of
uncertainty and different agents will behave differently in the same
'environment'.
If this all sounds a bit far fetched, well maybe it is. But orthdox
economic theory is even more fetched as it assumes that interactions between
economic agents do not matter and that time is reversible. (Although these
assumptions are not obvious at first).
The Santa Fe Institute is really big into this stuff and lots of computer
modelling takes place.
My interest though is forecasting and it seems to me that everyone is
currently building interesting models and the like but they are no good for
forecasting.
I take it most people on this newsgroup are biologists. I'd be interested
in hearing what's at the cutting edge of evolutionary theories today.
Particularly if you can predict the future yet...
James
"Roger Burton West" <ro...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote in message
news:20001021170148....@firedrake.org...
> In article <39f14490$0$11631$7f31...@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>,
> James Dick <james...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> >I am new to this newsgroup and nothing has happened since I joined.
> >I am interested in using evolution as a metaphor for changes in
economies.
>
> Which sort of evolution? Are you talking about gradual adaptation or
> phase changes - or both? Also, what's the evolving agent - the company,
> the individual, the generic economic entity?
>
> This sounds interesting.
>
> >Anyone else subcribed to this newsgroup?
>
> Yes. U2 isn't particularly high-volume or high-subscriber.
>
> Roger