Evolution and Economic Change

The central theme of this paper is economic change and the mechanisms by which it is generated. As befits a paper presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it draws its inspiration from theories of evolutionary change, theories which over one hundred years ago were the subject of debates of some ferocity at its meetings (Jones, 1980). To be more precise the purpose of this paper is to outline elements of a framework for the analysis of the relationship between the development of technology and long-run economic change. Since Marx and Schumpeter wrote, no one has seriously questioned the idea that economic change is driven by the introduction and diffusion of innovations either in technique or in organisation. In this they draw a remarkable, if unnoticed, parallel with the process of change in the natural world where speciation and selection are the driving forces behind the changing patterns of plant and animal life.