The theory of 'enforced maximisation' claims that whatever decision procedures individuals and firms adopt, maximisation of utility for individuals and profits for firms will be selected for by the forces of competition. Competition thus enforces maximisation. Evolutionary arguments are typically employed to support these claims, either individually or jointly. A behavioural economic theory may have three basic components: a theory of preferences, of beliefs, and of the behaviour of individuals in social institutions (particularly firms). To each of these the approach of enforced maximisation has been applied. Becker has argued that people have stable self-interested preferences as the result of selection along sociobiological lines; Muth has argued that individuals' beliefs can be assumed to be represented in a rational expectations fashion, because if they did not do so an arbitrage profit would result, and rational agents would therefore exploit it. Friedman has argued that firms' can be assumed to be profit maximisers because if they did not, analogous to natural selection, they would go out of business. This thesis argues that these claims are individually unsustainable, and in seme form jointly inconsistent. The demonstration uses a series of criteria for deciding between rival explanations. First, it is argued that the sociobiological account of preference formation is deeply problematic, particularly in its account of self-interest and altruism. Second, it is demonstrated that the selection-based argument for the rational expectations account of belief-formation fails. Third, it is shewn why profit maximisation is not necessarily enforced by the market. Finally, the selection for firm's profit maximisation behaviour relies on selection of utility maximising individual behaviour, and such a reliance may be inconsistent with the programme of the theory of 'enforced maximisation'.

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This paper examines the possible contribution of evolutionary economics to macro-economic modelling of flood impacts to provide guidance for future economic risk modelling. Most macro-economic models start from a neoclassical economic perspective and focus on equilibrium outcomes, either in a static or dynamic way, and describe economic processes at a high level of aggregation. As a consequence, they typically fail to account for the complexity of social interactions and other behavioural responses of consumers and producers to disasters, which may affect the macroeconomic impacts of floods. Employing evolutionary principles and methods, such as agent-based modelling, may help to address some of the shortcomings of current macro-economic models. We explore and discuss the implications of applying consumer and producer heterogeneity, bounded rationality, network effects, social and technological learning, co-evolution and adaptive policy-making concepts into existing economic frameworks for the assessment of macro-economic impacts of floods. (authors' abstract)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Economics and Social Science Consortium. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2008. / "A dissertation in economics and the social science consortium." Advisor: Mathew Forstater. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed Feb. 6, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-193). Online version of the print edition.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains v, 45 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-169).

This thesis investigates the evolutionary foundation of the Innovation System concept and the quantitative techniques that could be used for a systemic evaluation of innovation policies. This topic has been covered through 6 chapters: / Chapter I: The innovation system concept, which is the central concept of this thesis, finds its foundations in the evolutionary theory of economics and the Schumpeterian point of view on the co-evolution of innovation, organizations and institutions. Developed by Nelson and Winter in 1982, this theory is based on the idea that the surviving firms on the markets are not necessarily the ones that maximize their profits. Indeed, their ability to survive is reinforced by the development of internal organizational routines allowing for a fast adaptation to their changing environment. Thus, when assessing performances in terms of innovation in general, the single firm should not by the only centre of attention anymore. The entire environment surrounding its innovation activities should by analysed to understand the conditions underlying its failure or success. The definition of the innovation system (IS) concept finds its roots in this theory: the environment in which innovation activities take place is as important as the decision of the single innovation actor. Defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation and diffusion of new knowledge and technology, the IS includes not only stakeholders of the innovation process, but also all the transversal sectors affecting innovation near or far: labour market, finance, and education… In such a context, the main justification for public intervention shifted from the market failures described by the neo-classical theory, to systemic failures, i.e. the dysfunctions of the IS, on which governments may take actions. And this shift in the policy rationale also leads to specific evaluation techniques of public initiatives. / Chapter II: The IS concept is defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. An important question is raised by such a point of view: what is a system? What are its components? How does it foster innovation? This theoretical step is necessary to understand all the aspect of the innovation environment that are concerned by innovation policy design. How could a policy-maker integrate the systemic framework of the IS when initiating public action with the aim to improve performances in terms of science, technology and innovation? A large part of the economic literature is dedicated to the description of innovation systems. So the aim of this chapter consists of synthetizing the aspects referenced in the economic theory as the components of the IS in a normative exercise. First, the term “system” involves the articulation of several components and the relationships existing between them. Departing from this definition, three broad aspect of the IS are considered: the actors of the innovation process, the functions of the system and the resulting objectives that should be pursued by the stakeholders, and the instruments used by public authorities to intervene in such a systemic context. The actors involved in the innovation process are not only the recipient of a public policy, they are also policy makers, implementation agents and targets of the policy measures. The functions of the IS mainly concerns the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. As the role of the State is to improve the performances of such a system, those functions should be considered as the objectives of public action. Finally, the instruments used by the State to reach these goals can also be detailed: innovation policies can be implemented through direct support measures (financial or fiscal tools), the improvement of the infrastructure allowing for the diffusion of innovation, or the general framework conditions affecting performances. The normative exercise ended up with an exhaustive taxonomy that may be used for further analysis / Chapter III: As the aim of this thesis is to develop analytical tools to integrate the IS point of view in public policy evaluation, the most important aspect of the work consisted in building an exhaustive database on innovation policies implemented in the EU28 Member States and its main non-EU competitors (Australia, China, Japan, the US, India, the Russian Federation, Brazil, South Korea and Canada). This database was constructed in the context of the ENIRI study conducted by the European Commission, between 2013 and 2015. This long-lasting work involved the collection of information concerning the innovation policy measures implemented in all the considered countries, both at the national and regional levels. This information was related to the IS dimensions highlighted in previous chapter. The main sources for data collection were the RIO (former Erawatch) and OECD STIP databases, the RIM Plus Monitor and national sources (Ministry websites), as well as national experts. The budgets was also included or estimated for the 2007-2013 period. Once the data were collected, the policy measures were classified according to the theoretical canvas developed through the taxonomy of chapter II. Functional matrices combining different aspects of the IS allowed for detailed information on the distribution of policy measures among the different dimensions of the system. For example, it is possible to estimate the percentage of policy measures implemented in one country that are dedicated to the fundamental research activities in SMEs. This distribution has been computed both in absolute and budget terms. This difference provided information on the contrast existing between governmental claims and intentions in terms of innovation policies and the effective use of money dedicated to the announced target. Indeed, it is not because a substantial number of policies are dedicated to a specific sector of beneficiary that the allocated budget will be more important. Thus, this policy database should shed a light on the way innovation policies are articulated at a national level, and how they are effectively implemented through their budgets / Chapter IV: The evolutionary foundations of the IS concept imply that there is no general equilibrium describing an ideal situation to which a specific case can be compared. In other words, there is no optimal innovation system, and no ideal configuration that should be imitated by the others. This absence of equilibrium and the systemic point of view adopted in this context lead to the use of alternative techniques to evaluate performances and policies. As suggested by Edquist (2006), this has to be done through a diagnosis of the IS, consisting in the identification of the systemic failures, and the elaboration of strategy to fix the problem. This demarche will be investigated in this chapter of the thesis and the following. In this section, a diagnosis of the IS of 37 countries (28 EU and their 9 non-EU competitors) will be realized through a typology based on innovation performances indicators. The aim of such an analysis is to see whether the different IS can be gathered in groups sharing the same characteristics, relative strengths and weaknesses. The expected results should reveal groups of countries sharing the same configurations in terms of innovation process, and facing the same type of weaknesses, dysfunctions or systemic failures. By doing so, one should be able to identify the needs of each IS, i.e. the components that may need improvement and eventually public intervention. To do so, a principal component analysis and a hierarchical ascendant clustering technique have been implemented on the 37 IS, revealing 4 clusters of countries, depending on their NIS characteristics and advancement: 1) The Asian economies, 2) The lagging-behind and catching-up NIS, 3) The small opened systems, 4) The technological leaders. This analysis has been realized for the 2003-2005 and 2013-2015 periods, revealing that, if the general features of the clusters do not tend to change over time, some countries faced a change a modification of their status: Korea left the Asian group to join the leaders, Cyprus and Ireland opened their boarders to a larger extent in a decade. / Chapter V: Innovation policy typologyThis chapter is focused on the construction of an innovation policy typology based on the distributions of policies obtained in the database presented in chapter III. The results of this typology will be compared with the diagnosis realized in previous section to see if the weaknesses and needs of the NIS are effectively targeted by public action in innovation. Also, the aspects that could enhance or weaken such action, and their combination with other component of the NIS could be better understood. To this purpose, a multiple factor analysis has been implemented on the distributions of policy measures in terms of NIS components, followed by a hierarchical ascendant clustering, revealing groups of countries sharing the same characteristics in terms of policy design and implementation. 34 NIS have been examined (India, Brazil and Russia have been removed from the sample due to the bad quality of the information), using both the budget-weighted and non-budget-weighted distributions of measures on the 2007-2013 period. However, the results of this typology cannot be interpreted separately from the general innovation framework in which the public action is implemented. Indeed, countries having the same features in terms of beneficiaries and/or objectives in terms of policy do not necessarily share the same kind of IS. These implementation characteristics should rather be interpreted in light of the results obtained in the NIS diagnosis typology, in order to examiner if the public money effectively go where it is needed. In general, the different examined countries seem to effectively tackle their weaknesses, but countries facing the same types of problems do not implement the same type of policy mix, reinforcing the hypothesis that the innovation process is embedded in a large institutional framework that my orient public action in a direction rather than another. Two specific cases hold the attention in those results: South Korea, whose leader status came along with an improvement of the in force regulatory framework and a focus on private research, and Japan, dealing with research in the pharmaceutical research and ageing-population issues. / Chapter VI: The impact of macroeconomic and IS factors on the efficiency of public R&DAnother point of view can be adopted in an attempt to integrate the IS representations in policy evaluation techniques: the analysis of their impact on the efficiency of public R&D in leveraging private investments. In this chapter, a combination of two types of analysis is used to examine the problematic: the study of the efficiency of public R&D expenditure and its determinants on one hand, and the investigation of a possible crowding out effect of public R&D on the private one on another hand. The crowding out effect is translated into efficiency analysis, considering the BERD funded by government as an input, and the BERD funded by business as an output. And if an increase in the output leads to a decrease in the output, public intervention is considered to crowd out private initiative, as the firm may decide to replace its own investment with public money, instead of using it as an extra resource to increase its R&D activities. In this context, the IS as environment of R&D activities can be seen as a determinant of this efficiency, as it can strengthen or weaken this crowding out effect. The question asked in this section is the following: how to quantify and model the interdependencies existing between the different components of a NIS in order to integrate them in a quantitative analysis. This has been done in this study by implementing factorial analysis (Buesa, 2010) on a set of indicators collected in the Global Competitiveness Index database, and considered as descriptors of the different aspects of the innovation system. Those IS factors are: 1) the general STI environment, 2) the accessibility of the financial markets, 3) the internationalization of the system, 4) barriers to entrepreneurship and 5) the flexibility of labour regulation. Afterwards, these variables have been added as efficiency determinants in a stochastic frontier model assessing a possible crowding out effect between public and private initiatives. The main results showed that there is an additional effect of public R&d expenditure on private R&D investments (no crowding out). Moreover, the general STI environment and accessibility of financial markets have a positive impact on this efficiency, contrary to the presence of foreign stakeholders in the system. The two last factors remain insignificant. Those results suggest that, if public intervention should have an effect on the performances of the NIS, this relationship is also reciprocal: a well-functioning NIS may have a positive effect on the results of a policy measure. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

There is disagreement in the literature about the relative roles of selection (competition) and adaptation in explaining industrial change. For some, the possibilities for adaptation by individual firms are highly limited, and instead the key drivers of industry-level change are the extinction of some firms and the birth of others. Others stress that survival is all about the ways in which a firm can choose to adapt to changes in the external environment and to changes in competition. This dissertation takes the view there is a false dichotomy between adaptation and selection, that they are not opposites and that adaptation is an essential an unavoidable part of any relevant evolutionary process. Even if selection generates larger industry-level outcomes, adaptability is still important. It is then an empirical matter of the relative strengths of adaptability and selection in particular circumstances. The work makes a clear distinction between an adaptation, a change to an individual (firm) that enables the individual to be better fitted to its environment, and adaptability, the potential to adjust to changes in the selection environment. In looking for causal explanations, the approach adopted here acknowledges that causes relate to potentialities or dispositions and not to effects or events. Using this approach, the adopted methodology maintains that business routines, even when defined as capacities or dispositions rather than behaviours, can still be measured and used to generate an adaptability instrument. It is then possible to look at the relationship between the adaptability instrument and survival. The research looks particularly at the adaptability and survival of small and medium size firms, as they constitute the majority of enterprises in the UK and are empirically under-represented in previous research. This thesis looks at the evolution of populations of such firms through the mix of firm-level adaptation and selection in the population. The methodology concentrated on the four constituent areas of any firm: sales and marketing, production, administration and human resources, and corporate strategy. It examined not the quantities of operation in routines as in many previous studies but the levels of adaptability firms perceive they actually achieve or believe they would experience in the face of both continuous and discontinuous internal and external change. The adaptability instrument is the composite measure of the potential to adapt routines across the four constituent areas, capturing a picture of the interactions between the strategies, structures and procedures within the firm. The methodology also involved a relatively large sample of observations of a representative set of small and medium-sized enterprises, addressing the lack of previous empirical work on datasets of a whole population of firms taken from multiple industries and sectors. It was also possible to re-sample respondents in the depths of a recession 18 months later in order to look at the relationship between previously calculated adaptability and the subsequent degree of survival. The results challenge the exclusive role of selection only in explaining industry attributes and suggest that adaptability is important for firm survival. Even if selection generates larger industry-level outcomes, adaptability is still important. The research demonstrates that both competitive selection and developmental adaptability combine to explain industrial change and that any differences in adaptability between firms are of significance. In a sharp recession, however, only the firms with more potential to adapt their output in response to falling demand, and so better protect their cash flow against any contracting credit availability, have an advantage relative to their rivals that can confer relatively greater longevity and survivability. Other factors contribute to survival more strongly in recession than in more stable times and, while adaptability still matters, the slightly lower adaptability of older cohorts of firms masks the positive value of adaptability. At the individual firm level during sharp recession, indirect competition through customers choosing not to spend, or spend scarce resources elsewhere, rapidly de-selects those with weak cash flow management, poor cash reserves or poor credit worthiness. The criteria adopted for degrees of failure were heavily dependent on the context of use but reflected common parlance among the survey respondents. The findings of this research point to the merits of a theoretical framework different from much textbook economics, strategy-choice theory and organisational ecology. The findings support an evolutionary approach that in turn corresponds with recent developments in the theoretical framework known as Generalised Darwinism.

Orientador: Luciana Togeiro de Almeida / Banca: Maj Munch Andersen / Banca: Tatiana Massaroli de Melo / Resumo: Este trabalho foi realizado no formato de três artigos que se apresentam aqui como capítulos. O primeiro artigo realiza uma revisão bibliográfica sobre o papel da tecnologia para a economia do meio ambiente e a economia evolucionista. O segundo artigo faz uma discussão acerca dos problemas ambientais relacionados ao setor eletrônico brasileiro, bem como as possíveis soluções tecnologias desenvolvidas para soluciona-los, ademais ele faz apontamentos sobre a discussão da regulação ambiental na promoção dessas soluções tecnológicas. O terceiro artigo realiza um levantamento das firmas brasileiras do setor eletrônico que realizaram inovações ambientais no período de 2009-2011, através desse levantamento, busca-se identificar as características das firmas quanto ao seu tamanho, capital controlador, cooperação entre agentes, esforços inovativos e regulação. Por último, é realizado um exercício econométrico cuja finalidade é indicar quais são os principais determinantes das inovações ambientais no setor eletrônico brasileiro no ano de 2011 / Abstract: This master thesis was structured in three articles presented here in chapters format. The first article provides a literature review on the role of technology in environmental economics and evolutionary economics as well. The second article discuss the environmental problems related to the Brazilian electronics sector, and its possible technological solutions. It also discuss the roll of environmental regulation as a driver of these technological solutions. The third article presents a survey of Brazilian electronics companies that performed environmental innovations in 2009-201, we seek to identify the characteristics of firms in terms of size, controlling capital, cooperation among agents, innovative efforts and regulation. Besides this, it is performed an econometric exercise whose purpose is to indicate which are the main determinants of environmental innovations in the Brazilian electronics industry in this period / Mestre

Os principais modelos de equilíbrio parcial e DSGE que estudam a dinâmica do investimento desconsideram questões centrais para a pesquisa desse tema e tem dificuldades em explicar resultados da literatura empírica. Defendemos que estudar a dinâmica do investimento como um sistema adaptativo complexo por meio de modelos de simulação baseados em agentes (ABMs) é uma alternativa promissora. Nessa dissertação motivamos, descrevemos, justificamos metodologicamente e construímos um ABM nos inspirando em modelos importantes da literatura e incorporamos às expectativas de demanda das firmas uma regra de revisão de otimismo e um mecanismo de interação em suas decisões de produção e investimento. Com isso, reproduzimos diversos fatos estilizados da literatura empírica e conseguimos testar os efeitos macroeconômicos de hipóteses teóricas relacionadas a fenômenos de contágio via confiança, motivações políticas e à reflexividade, presentes nas decisões das firmas. Nossos resultados colocam em dúvida a efetividade de mecanismos análogos à greve de investimentos, como meios dos empresários controlarem as políticas dos governos, mas confirmam que endogeneizar possíveis motivações políticas, ainda que subjetivas, no nível de confiança das firmas tem efeitos macroeconômicos substanciais. Ademais, nossos experimentos sugerem que i) tanto a evolução da produtividade, quanto dos salários reais são condições necessárias para o crescimento, ii) choques de confiança temporários tem efeitos de longo-prazo, iii) para que choques de pessimismo localizados contagiem a economia, eles precisam ser persistentes, iv) considerar o conceito de reflexividade tem consequências macroeconômicas importantes. Não encontramos evidências de que contrações fiscais do governo possam ser expansionistas, por meio de seus efeitos na confiança. / The main parcial equilibrium and DSGE models which study investment dynamics disregard core issues about this subject and have problems to explain results coming from the empirical literature. We argue that studying investment dynamics in a complex adaptive system by using Agent-Based Models is a promising alternative. In this work we motivate, describe, justify methodologically and build an ABM in line with important models from the literature and we incorporate to firms\' demand expectations an optimism revision rule and an interaction mechanism in their decisions to produce and invest. Thereby, we replicate many stylized facts from the empirical literature and we were able to test macroeconomic effects from theoretical hypothesis related to confidence-driven contagion phenomena, political motivation and reflexivity, present in firms\' decisions. Our results question the effectiveness of mechanisms analogous to the investment strikes, as a way for businessmen to control government policies, but confirm that endogenize possible political motivations, yet subjective, in the level of confidence of the firms has substantial macroeconomic effects. Furthermore, our experiments suggest that i) both productivity and real wages are necessary conditions for growth, ii) temporary confidence shocks have long-term effect, iii ) for localized shocks of pessimism, to contagion the economy, they need to be persistent, iv) consider the concept of reflexivity has important macroeconomic consequences. We find no evidence that government fiscal contractions can be expansionist, through their effects on confidence levels.