This thought-provoking volume seeks to answer some of the ultimate economic questions in terms of a theory that emerged with Adam Smith and is now come to full fruition; the principle of circular and cumulative causation (CCC) This full-fledged theoretical framework explains the whole interplay of technology, firms, resources, culture, institutions and economic policy to understand the basic drives behind modern day economic dynamics.

This thought-provoking volume presents essays on the foundations of non-equilibrium economics, i.e. the principle of circular cumulative causation (CCC). This work presents empirical research on how the interplay of technology’s increasing returns to scale, institutions, resources, and economic policy leads to virtuous circles of economic growth and development, but also to vicious circles of social and ecological degradation. In particular, evidence is provided for the important role of the "development state" and strategic trade policy, economies of large-scale production in manufacturing, the regional level of development and community-based resource management regimes. While demonstrating CCC’s strength in generating empirical research, the book also provides insights into its philosophical foundations and intellectual history. Several essays trace the roots of this full-fledged theoretical framework back to Adam Smith, Classical Political Economy, Thorstein Veblen, Gunnar Myrdal, K. William Kapp and Nicholas Kaldor. As the most comprehensive collection of the growing body of CCC research to date, this book also reflects the emergence of an economic paradigm for understanding economic dynamics and for crafting viable development strategies for the 21st century. The volume will be of great interest to scholars of growth and development economics, institutional and evolutionary economics, political economy, and Post Keynesian economics from undergraduate to postgraduate research levels.

The most common mode of analysis in economic theory is to assume equilibrium. Yet, without a proper theory of how economies behave in disequilibrium, there is no foundation for such a practice. The necessary step in proposing a foundation is the formulation of a theory of stability, and in this 1984 book, Professor Fisher is primarily concerned with this subject, although disequilibrium behavior itself is analyzed. The author first undertakes a review of the existing literature on the stability of general equilibrium. He then proposes a more satisfactory general model in which agents realize their state of disequilibrium and act on arbitrage opportunities. The interrelated topics of the role of money, the nature of quantity constraints, and the optimal behaviour of arbitraging agents are extensively treated.

The papers that comprise this collection introduce key advances in modern value theory. Equilibrium and non-equilibrium approaches are discussed alongside the theory behind abstract labour and money.

Peter A. Diamond discusses search equilibrium as a framework for integrating micro and macroeconomics.

It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. This 2005 volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges.

A equilibrium-free political economy based on the labour theory of value is developed in this volume which brings together authors who have worked in this framework for the last ten years.

What is the score card for economics at the start of the new millennium? While there are many different schools of economic thought, it is the neo-classical school, with its alleged understanding and simplistic advocacy of the market, that has become equated in the public mind with economics. This book shows that virtually every aspect of conventional neo-classical economics' thinking is intellectually unsound. Steve Keen draws on an impressive array of advanced critical thinking. He constitutes a profound critique of the principle concepts, theories, and methodologies of the mainstream discipline. Keen raises grave doubts about economics' pretensions to established scientific status and its reliability as a guide to understanding the real world of economic life and its policy-making.

The theory of competition has held a central place in economic analysis since Adam Smith. This book, written by one of the most distinguished of contemporary economic theorists, reports on a major research program to provide strategic foundations for the theory of perfect competition. Beginning with a concise survey of how the theory of competition has evolved, Gale makes extensive and rigorous use of dynamic matching and bargaining models to provide a more complete description of how a competitive equlibrium is achieved. Whereas economists have made use of a macroscopic description of markets in which certain behavioral characteristics, such as price-taking behavior, are taken for granted, Gale uses game theory to re-evaluate this assumption, beginning with individual agents and modelling their strategic interaction. A strategic foundation for competitive equilibrium shows how such interaction leads to competitive, price-taking behavior. Essential reading for graduate courses in game theory and general equilibrium.

This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.