The collection of papers presented in this special issue arose out of two events. The first was the symposium "Escaping Satiation - Increasing Product Variety, Preference Change and the Demand Side of Economic Growth" which was held at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, in December 1997. The Fritz Thyssen Foundation provided financial support for this seminal symposium which is gratefully acknowledged. Wilhelm Ruprecht was of great help in preparing the symposium and I would like to express my gratitude to hirn on this occasion. Many stimulating exchanges with hirn over the past few years while he was a research associate at the Institute working on long term changes in consumption convinced me of the relevance and importance of this problem for understanding modem economic growth. I also owe thanks to many people who encouraged me to go ahead with the symposium, among them Stanley Metcalfe, Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, and also Ehud Zuscovitch, who died so unexpectedly last year.

This volume, in a sense, aims at reflecting the qualities of the honoree and it does so in two respects. On the one hand, it covers a great variety of subdisciplines of economics. On the other hand, the book ranges from theoretical and mathematical economics to hands-on applied analyses of economic-policy issues. All essays are driven by the aspiration to better understand the economy and to draw relevant conclusions for economic policy. The book is divided into five parts dealing with the German economy, European economic issues, global markets, international trade theory and policy, and natural resources and the environment.

Computational Techniques for Modelling Learning in Economics offers a critical overview of the computational techniques that are frequently used for modelling learning in economics. It is a collection of papers, each of which focuses on a different way of modelling learning, including the techniques of evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, neural networks, classifier systems, local interaction models, least squares learning, Bayesian learning, boundedly rational models and cognitive learning models. Each paper describes the technique it uses, gives an example of its applications, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the technique. Hence, the book offers some guidance in the field of modelling learning in computation economics. In addition, the material contains state-of-the-art applications of the learning models in economic contexts such as the learning of preference, the study of bidding behaviour, the development of expectations, the analysis of economic growth, the learning in the repeated prisoner's dilemma, and the changes of cognitive models during economic transition. The work even includes innovative ways of modelling learning that are not common in the literature, for example the study of the decomposition of task or the modelling of cognitive learning.

The purpose of this contributed volume is to consider how global consumption patterns will develop in the next few decades, and what the consequences of that development will be for the economy, policymakers, and society at large. In the long run, the extent to which economic growth translates into better living conditions strongly depends on how rising affluence and new technologies shape consumer preferences. The ongoing rise in household income in developing countries raises some important questions: Will consumption patterns always continue to expand in the same manner as we have witnessed in the previous two centuries? If not, how might things evolve differently? And what implications would such changes hold for not only our understanding of consumption behavior but also our pursuit of more sustainable societies?

The Elgar Companion to Neo-Schumpeterian Economics is a cutting-edge collection of specially commissioned contributions highlighting not only the broad scope but also the common ground between all branches of this prolific and fast developing field of economics. For 25 years economists have been investigating industrial dynamics under the heading of neo-Schumpeterian economics, which has itself become a mature and widely acknowledged discipline in the fields of innovation, knowledge, growth and development economics. The Elgar Companion to Neo-Schumpeterian Economics surveys the achievements of the most visible scholars in this area. The contributions to the Companion give both a brief survey on the various fields of neo-Schumpeterian economics as well as insights into recent research at the scientific frontiers. The book also illustrates the potential of neo-Schumpeterian economics to overcome its so far self-imposed restriction to the domains of technology driven industry dynamics, and to become a comprehensive approach in economics suited for the analysis of development processes in all economic domains. Integrating both the public sector and financial markets, the book focusses on the co-evolutionary processes between the different domains. As a roadmap for the development of a comprehensive neo-Schumpeterian theory, the Companion will be an invaluable source of reference for researchers in the fields of industrial dynamics and economic growth, and academics and scholars of economics generally. PhD students will find the Companion an indispensable general introduction to the field of neo-Schumpeterian economics. It will also appeal to politicians and consultants engaged in national and international policy as the Companion deals with the highly important and ever topical phenomena of economic development.

There is wide consensus on the importance of knowledge for economic growth and local development patterns. This book proposes a view of knowledge as a collective, systemic and evolutionary process that enables agents and social systems to overcome the challenges of the limits to growth. It brings together new conceptual and empirical contributions, analysing the relationship between demand and supply factors and the rate and direction of technological change. It also examines the different elements that compose innovation systems. The Economics of Knowledge, Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy provides the background for the development of an integrated framework for the analysis of systemic policy instruments and their mutual interaction the socio-political and economic conditions of the surrounding environment. These aspects have long been neglected in innovation policy, as policymakers, academics and the business community, have mostly emphasized the benefits of supply side strategies. However, a better understanding of innovation policies grafted on a complexity-based approach calls for the appreciation of the mutual interactions between both supply and demand aspects, and it is likely to improve the actual design of policy measures. This book will help readers to understand the foundations and working of demand-driven innovation policies by stressing the importance of compent and smart demand.

In this book, Davide Gualerzi employs the concept of transformational growth to explore the investment-driven cycle of expansion of the 1990s in the US economy, and of the of role played by the ICT sector. The book articulates a view of demand-led growth in which the focus is on effective demand, the composition of the growth process and the link between changing composition and expansion.

While dating from post-Classical economists such as Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter, the inception of the modern field of evolutionary economics is usually dated to the early 1980s. Broadly speaking, evolutionary economics sees the economy as undergoing continual, evolutionary change. Evolutionary change indicates that these changes were not planned, but rather were the result of innovations and selection processes. These often involved winners and losers, but most importantly, they resulted in actors learning what was and was not working. Evolutionary economics, in contrast to mainstream economics, emphasises the relevance of variables such as technology, institutions, decision rules, routines, or consumer preferences for explaining the complex evolutionary changes in the economy. In so doing, evolutionary economics significantly broadens the scope of economic analysis, and sheds new light on key concepts and issues of the discipline. This handbook draws on a stellar cast list of international contributors, ranging from the founders of the field to the newest voices. The volume explores the current state of the art in the field of evolutionary economics at the levels of the micro (e.g. firms and households), meso (e.g. industries and institutions), and macro (e.g. economic policy, structure, and growth). Overall, the Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Economics provides an excellent overview of current trends and issues in this rapidly developing field.

The essays in this Festschrift have been chosen to honour Harald Hagemann and his scientific work. They reflect his main contributions to economic research and his major fields of interest. The essays in the first part deal with various aspects within the history of economic thought. The second part is about the current state of macroeconomics. The essays in the third part of the book cover topics on economic growth and structural dynamics.