IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/egu/wpaper/1401.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Towards a Developmental Turn in Evolutionary Economic Geography?

Author

Listed:
  • Ron Martin
  • Peter Sunley

Abstract

Over the past couple of decades or so, there have been increasing moves within evolutionary theory to move beyond the neo-Darwinian principles of variety, selection and retention, and to incorporate development. This has led to a richer palette of concepts, mechanisms and models of evolution and change, such as plasticity, robustness, evolvability, emergence, niche construction, and selforganisation, This opens up a different framework for understanding evolution. In this paper we set out the main characteristics of the recent and ongoing ‘developmental turn’ in evolutionary theory, and suggest how these might inform a corresponding ‘developmental turn’ in evolutionary economic geography.

Suggested Citation

  • Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2014. "Towards a Developmental Turn in Evolutionary Economic Geography?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1401, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:egu:wpaper:1401
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1401.pdf
    File Function: Version January 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Georgy Levit & Uwe Hossfeld & Ulrich Witt, 2011. "Can Darwinism be “Generalized” and of what use would this be?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 545-562, October.
    2. Ulrich Witt, 2004. "On the proper interpretation of 'evolution' in economics and its implications for production theory," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 125-146.
    3. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "Complexity Thinking and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Martin, Ron, 1999. "The New 'Geographical Turn' in Economics: Some Critical Reflections," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(1), pages 65-91, January.
    5. Eric Sheppard, 2011. "Geographical political economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 319-331, March.
    6. Frank H. Knight, 1923. "The Ethics of Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 37(4), pages 579-624.
    7. Simone Strambach, 2010. "Path Dependence and Path Plasticity: The Co-evolution of Institutions and Innovation – the German Customized Business Software Industry," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 19, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Richard Nelson, 2008. "Economic Development from the Perspective of Evolutionary Economic Theory," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 9-21.
    9. Kurt Dopfer & Jason Potts, 2004. "Evolutionary realism: a new ontology for economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 195-212.
    10. Ron A. Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2006. "Why is economic geography not an evolutionary science? Towards an evolutionary economic geography," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 273-302, June.
    11. Martin, Ron & Sunley, Peter, 2012. "Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 338-351.
    12. Andy Pike & Stuart Dawley & John Tomaney, 2010. "Resilience, adaptation and adaptability," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 3(1), pages 59-70.
    13. J. Stan Metcalfe & John Foster & Ronnie Ramlogan, 2006. "Adaptive economic growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 30(1), pages 7-32, January.
    14. Bjørn Asheim & Ron Boschma & Philip Cooke, 2011. "Constructing Regional Advantage: Platform Policies Based on Related Variety and Differentiated Knowledge Bases," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(7), pages 893-904.
    15. Christian Cordes, 2006. "Darwinism in economics: from analogy to continuity," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 529-541, December.
    16. Max-Peter Menzel & Dirk Fornahl, 2010. "Cluster life cycles--dimensions and rationales of cluster evolution," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(1), pages 205-238, February.
    17. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2011. "Conceptualizing Cluster Evolution: Beyond the Life Cycle Model?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(10), pages 1299-1318, November.
    18. Knight, Frank H., 1923. "The Ethics of Competition," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 37, pages 579-624, August.
    19. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin, 2007. "Editorial: Constructing an evolutionary economic geography," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(5), pages 537-548, September.
    20. Tony Lawson, 2012. "Ontology and the study of social reality: emergence, organisation, community, power, social relations, corporations, artefacts and money," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 36(2), pages 345-385.
    21. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2002. "Darwinism in economics: from analogy to ontology," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 259-281.
    22. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2015. "On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42.
    23. Dong-Ho Shin & Robert Hassink, 2011. "Cluster Life Cycles: The Case of the Shipbuilding Industry Cluster in South Korea," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(10), pages 1387-1402, November.
    24. Malerba, Franco, et al, 1999. "'History-Friendly' Models of Industry Evolution: The Computer Industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 8(1), pages 3-40, March.
    25. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2007. "Exploring evolutionary economic geographies," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(5), pages 549-571, September.
    26. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12864.
    27. Tim Cochrane & James Maclaurin, 2012. "Evolvability and progress in evolutionary economics," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 101-114, July.
    28. Ron Martin, 2012. "Regional economic resilience, hysteresis and recessionary shocks," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-32, January.
    29. Anne Ter Wal & Ron Boschma, 2011. "Co-evolution of Firms, Industries and Networks in Space," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(7), pages 919-933.
    30. Danny MacKinnon & Andrew Cumbers & Andy Pike & Kean Birch & Robert McMaster, 2009. "Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Political Economy, and Adaptation," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(2), pages 129-150, April.
    31. Fulvio Castellacci, 2006. "A critical realist interpretation of evolutionary growth theorising," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 30(6), pages 861-880, November.
    32. Dopfer,Kurt (ed.), 2005. "The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521621991, October.
    33. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2006. "Path dependence and regional economic evolution," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 395-437, August.
    34. Gernot Grabher & David Stark, 1997. "Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis and Postsocialism," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 533-544.
    35. David, Paul A., 1994. "Why are institutions the 'carriers of history'?: Path dependence and the evolution of conventions, organizations and institutions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 205-220, December.
    36. Hodgson, Geoffrey M. & Knudsen, Thorbjorn, 2006. "Why we need a generalized Darwinism, and why generalized Darwinism is not enough," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 1-19, September.
    37. Ron Martin, 2010. "Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—Rethinking Regional Path Dependence: Beyond Lock-in to Evolution," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(1), pages 1-27, January.
    38. Danny MacKinnon & Andrew Cumbers & Andy Pike & Kean Birch & Robert McMaster, 2009. "Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Political Economy, and Adaptation," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(2), pages 129-150, April.
    39. Andrew G. Haldane & Robert M. May, 2011. "Systemic risk in banking ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 469(7330), pages 351-355, January.
    40. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2007. "Exploring Evolutionary Economic Geographies," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 0702, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Apr 2007.
    41. Ulrich Witt, 2003. "The Evolving Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2477.
    42. Jack Vromen, 2008. "Ontological issues in evolutionary economics: The debate between Generalized Darwinism and the Continuity Hypothesis," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2008-05, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    43. John Child & Suzana B. Rodrigues & Kenneth K-T. Tse, 2012. "The Dynamics of Influence in Corporate Co-Evolution," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7), pages 1246-1273, November.
    44. Howlett, Michael, 2009. "Process Sequencing Policy Dynamics: Beyond Homeostasis and Path Dependency," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(3), pages 241-262, December.
    45. Ron Boschma, 2004. "Competitiveness of Regions from an Evolutionary Perspective," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(9), pages 1001-1014.
    46. Guido Buenstorf, 2006. "How useful is generalized Darwinism as a framework to study competition and industrial evolution?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 511-527, December.
    47. Harry Garretsen & Ron Martin, 2010. "Rethinking (New) Economic Geography Models: Taking Geography and History More Seriously," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 127-160.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fan, Xiao-chao & Wang, Wei-qing, 2016. "Spatial patterns and influencing factors of China׳s wind turbine manufacturing industry: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 482-496.
    2. Veldhuizen, Caroline, 2021. "Conceptualising the foundations of sustainability focused innovation policy: From constructivism to holism," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    3. Frolov, Daniil, 2018. "Эво-Дево: Парадигмальный Вызов Для Институционально-Эволюционного Анализа [Evo-Devo: Paradigmal Challenge for Institutional-Evolutionary Analysis]," MPRA Paper 90198, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Nov 2018.
    4. Uzuegbunam, Ikenna & Geringer, J. Michael, 2021. "Culture, connectedness, and international adoption of disruptive innovation," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    5. Van den Berghe, Karel & Jacobs, Wouter & Boelens, Luuk, 2018. "The relational geometry of the port-city interface: Case studies of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Ghent, Belgium," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 55-63.
    6. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2019. "The behavioural foundations of urban and regional development: culture, psychology and agency," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 121-146.
    7. David Bailey & Lisa de Propris, 2014. "Editorial: Recession, Recovery and Resilience?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(11), pages 1757-1760, November.
    8. Frolov, Daniil, 2018. "Эво-Дево: Парадигмальный Вызов Для Институционально-Эволюционного Анализа (Версия 2.0) [Evo-Devo: Paradigmal Challenge for Institutional-Evolutionary Analysis (version 2.0)]," MPRA Paper 90285, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin, 2010. "The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Andy Pike & Andrew Cumbers & Stuart Dawley & Danny MacKinnon & Robert McMaster, 2015. "Doing evolution in economic geography," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1532, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2015.
    3. Martin, Ron & Sunley, Peter, 2012. "Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 338-351.
    4. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "The Place of Path Dependence in an Evolutionary Perspective on the Economic Landscape," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Michaela Trippl & Markus Grillitsch & Arne Isaksen & Tanja Sinozic, 2015. "Perspectives on Cluster Evolution: Critical Review and Future Research Issues," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(10), pages 2028-2044, October.
    6. Jon Barrutia & Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, 2018. "Towards an epigenetic understanding of evolutionary economics and evolutionary economic geography," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 213-241, December.
    7. Heike Schroeder, 2011. "Application possibilities of the micro-meso-macro framework in economic geography," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1115, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2011.
    8. Ron Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2011. "The emerging empirics of evolutionary economic geography," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 295-307, March.
    9. José M. Gaspar, 2018. "A prospective review on New Economic Geography," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 61(2), pages 237-272, September.
    10. Ron Boschma, 2015. "Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 733-751, May.
    11. Gernot Grabher, 2009. "Yet Another Turn? The Evolutionary Project in Economic Geography," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(2), pages 119-127, April.
    12. Hassink, Robert & Gong, Huiwen, 2017. "Sketching the Contours of an Integrative Paradigm of Economic Geography," Papers in Innovation Studies 2017/12, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    13. Ron Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2015. "Evolutionary Economic Geography," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1518, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised May 2015.
    14. Danny MacKinnon & Andrew Cumbers & Andy Pike & Kean Birch & Robert McMaster, 2009. "Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Political Economy, and Adaptation," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(2), pages 129-150, April.
    15. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2010. "Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Ron Boschma, 2021. "Global Value Chains from an Evolutionary Economic Geography perspective: a research agenda," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2134, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Nov 2021.
    17. Robert & Claudia Klaerding, 2012. "Theoretical advancement in economic geography by engaged pluralism," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1202, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2012.
    18. Liu Zhi-gao & Dunford Michael, 2012. "Rejuvenating old industries in new contexts: The traditional Chinese medicine cluster in Tonghua, China," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 56(1-2), pages 185-202, October.
    19. Essletzbichler Jürgen, 2012. "Generalized Darwinism, group selection and evolutionary economic geography," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 56(1-2), pages 129-146, October.
    20. Dieter F Kogler & Emil Evenhuis & Elisa Giuliani & Ron Martin & Elvira Uyarra & Ron Boschma, 2023. "Re-imagining evolutionary economic geography," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(3), pages 373-390.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evolutionary economic geography; Generalised Darwinism; Evolutionary developmental biology; Developmental systems theory; Plasticity; Robustness; Evolvability; Emergence; Self organisation;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:egu:wpaper:1401. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deguunl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.