The Economy as an Evolving Complex System IV
The Economy as an Evolving Complex System IV
The contemporary global economy exhibits unprecedented structural complexity—characterized by nonlinear dynamics, adaptive behaviors, and emergent properties. Understanding these phenomena requires theoretical frameworks capable of addressing complexity, path dependence, and evolutionary processes.
Complexity economics has developed to address such intellectual challenges. Originating in a seminal 1987 Santa Fe Institute workshop and first described in The Economy as an Evolving Complex System (1988), this approach fundamentally reconceptualizes economic systems as complex adaptive systems. Subsequent volumes (1997, 2005) progressively developed this framework, offering new insights into finance, technological innovation, and social interactions.
Like each of its predecessors, this fourth volume is the product of an interdisciplinary workshop hosted at the Santa Fe Institute. It represents the latest synthesis, reflecting theoretical advances and methodological developments achieved over nearly four decades. Drawing on contributions from leading scholars worldwide, the chapters span foundational questions to policy applications—from agent-based modeling and network theory to macroeconomic dynamics, innovation systems, sustainability transitions, and inequality.
The result demonstrates complexity economics' capacity to generate novel insights into phenomena that remain puzzling within traditional frameworks: financial instability, technological disruption, climate economics, and institutional change. This volume positions complexity economics as an essential analytical framework for understanding twenty-first-century economic realities.
Table of Contents
1: Introduction, Penny Mealy, Jenna Bednar, Eric D. Beinhocker, R. Maria del Rio-Chanona, J. Doyne Farmer, Jagoda Kaszowska-Mojsa, François Lafond, Marco Pangallo, and Anton Pichler
2: A Brief History of the Emergence of Complexity Economics, Eric D. Beinhocker, J. Doyne Farmer, Jenna Bednar, R. Maria del Rio-Chanona, Jagoda Kaszowska-Mojsa, François Lafond, Marco Pangallo, and Anton Pichler
Part I: Foundations of Complexity Economics
3: Combinatorial Evolution, W. Brian Arthur
4: Complexity Economics and General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
5: Equations vs. Maps: Complexity, Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, Marco Pangallo
6: Some Reflections on Complexity Economics: Research in the SFI Spirit, William Brock and Cars Hommes
Part II: Methods in Complexity Economics/Concepts/Phenomena
7: Economic Complexity Analysis, Frank Neffke, Angelica Sbardella, Ulrich Schetter, and Andrea Tacchella
8: Back to the Future: Agent-Based Modeling and Dynamic Microsimulation, Matteo Richiardi and Justin van de Ven
9: The Self-Organized Criticality Paradigm in Economics and Finance, Jean-Philippe Bouchaud
10: Data-Driven Economic Agent-Based Models, Marco Pangallo, and Maria del Rio-Chanona
11: Cutting Through Complexity: How Data Science Can Help Policymakers Understand the World, Arthur Turrell
12: On the Emergence of Zipfian Size Distributions: Coupled Stochastic Growth Biased Toward Larger Sizes, Robert Axtell, and Omar Guerrero
Part III: Macroeconomic Dynamics and Finance
13: Implications of Behavioral Rules in Agent-Based Macroeconomics, Herbert Dawid, Domenico Delli Gatti, Luca Eduardo Fierro, Sebastian Poledna
14: How an Agent-Based Model Can Support Monetary Policy in a Complex Evolving Economy, Cars Hommes, Sharon Kozicki, Sebastian Poledna, and Yang Zhang
15: Macroeconomic Fluctuations as Emergent Behavior when Agents Interact and Accumulate, Paul Beaudry, Dana Galizia, and Franck Portier
16: Understanding Financial Contagion: A Complexity-Modeling Perspective, Fabio Caccioli
17: Reflections on Econophysics’ Contributions to Finance, Rosario N. Mantegna
18: Agent-Based Modeling at Central Banks: Recent Developments and New Challenges, András Borsos, Adrian Carro, Aldo Glielmo, Marc Hinterschweiger, Jagoda Kaszowska-Mojsa, and Arzu Uluc
Part IV: Climate and Sustainability
19: A Complex-Systems Perspective on the Economics of Climate Change, Boundless Risk, and Rapid Decarbonization, Francesco Lamperti, Giovanni Dosi, and Andrea Roventini
20: Climate Risk through the Lens of Complexity Economics and Finance, Stefano Battiston, and Irene Monasterolo
21: Decarbonizing a Complex System, Marion Dumas, and Pia Andres
22: Complexity Economics View on Physical Climate Change Risk and Adaptation, Tatiana Filatova and Joos Akkerman
Part V: Inequality, Labor, and Structural Resilience
23: Complexity Theory and Economic Inequality, Steven N. Durlauf, David McMillon, and Scott E. Page
24: Beyond Efficiency: Labor-Market Resilience in an Age of AI and Net Zero, R. Maria del Rio-Chanona, Morgan R. Frank, Penny Mealy, Esteban Moro, and Ljubica Nedelkoska
Part VI: Innovation and Technological Disruption
25: Compositional Growth Models, José Moran and Massimo Riccaboni
26: Forecasting Technological Progress, François Lafond
27: Why Are New Ideas Getting Harder to Use?, Diane Coyle
28: Coevolution of Software and Innovation: Constraints, Tinkering, and Symbiosis, Sergi Valverde, Blai Vidiella, and Salva Duran-Nebreda
29: Economic Geography and Complexity Theory, Koen Frenken, and Frank Neffke
Part VII: Political Economy and Public Policy
30: The Political Economy of Complex Evolving Systems: the Case of Declining Unionization and Rising Inequalities, Giovanni Dosi, Marcelo C. Pereira, Andrea Reventini, and Maria Enrica Virgillito
31: Complexity and Paradigm Change in Economics, Eric Beinhocker and Jenna Bednar
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