The New Evolutionary Microeconomics: Complexity, Competence, and Adaptive Behaviour

Assessing this book on its own merits leads me to conclude that it is based upon a very clearly structured and argued central thesis. Further, the arguments in support of the thesis are compelling and the citations upon which it draws are authoritative. . . Ultimately the outstanding distinction of this book is the broad compass of the material and the coherent tapestry that Potts has weaved from it. It is a work of rare ambition and this is quite unusual in the staid realm of academia. . . this is an important addition to the corpus of economic knowledge. . . This book deserves a wide audience and I recommend it to all economists without hesitation. Tim Wakeley, Journal of Economic Psychology In my view this is one of the most important books on the theory of evolutionary economics in the last half century and perhaps the most consequential work in the area since Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter s famous volume of 1982. . . I picked this book up and could not put it down, it is a fantastic read a brilliant volume. It really is a very major and highly original piece of work. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire, UK The New Evolutionary Microeconomics is a work of unusually broad and often deep scholarship, tackling a very big issue and dealing with it forcefully. This book is nothing less than a fundamental critique of the very basis of neoclassical microeconomics, and a proposal for the structure of a new evolutionary theory. It made for fascinating reading and I hope and expect we will hear more of Jason Potts and his research programme. Tim Hazeldine, University of Auckland, New Zealand Jason Potts has written an ambitious and excellent book on the micro foundations of evolutionary economics. He has covered a wide range of literature and integrated the diverse strands into a coherent argument. It is a carefully crafted piece of work. Stan Metcalfe, University of Manchester, UK I think this is a very good book . . . Potts writes very, very well and some of his exposition of technical points and issues is spectacularly good. Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University, US This is a well structured, well written and imaginative book. It connected very effectively with my own ways of thinking while providing enlightening new perspectives and indeed substantive novelty. My recent writing would have been better had I been able to read this book first, and if my future writing is not better as a result of reading it that will be my fault. Brian J. Loasby, University of Stirling, UK This highly innovative and original book proposes evolutionary microeconomics as a synthesis of the collective schools of heterodox economic thought with complex systems theory and graph theory. The book charts a research programme for evolutionary economics that encompasses the theory of dynamic efficiency and emergence in markets, a computational model of the learning and interacting agent, a competence based theory of the firm and the household, and, via a theory of expectations and plans, an agent-based foundation to macroeconomics. Principally a work of meta-theory, The New Evolutionary Microeconomics argues for a radical refocus of microeconomic research toward the evolutionary nature of institutions, preferences, technology and knowledge. This challenging new book should prove timely and important for evolutionary and computational economists as well as those in the fields of managerial economics, business studies and marketing.