Evolution of Economic Diversity

Evolutionary Theory in the Social Sciences

The traditional role of evolutionary theory in the social sciences has been to explain the existence of an object in terms of the survival of the fittest. In economics this approach has acted as a justification for hypotheses such as profit maximisation, or the existence of institutions in terms of their overall efficiency.

This volume challenges that view and argues that one of the first tasks of economic theory should be to explain the enormous diversity of institutional arrangements that has characterised human societies.