In sum, there are multiple dimensions over which the different perspectives invoking evolutionary arguments may be evaluated.
A first one is the the degree of “rational,” forward-looking understanding of their decision environments that agents are assumed to possess, as compared to the objective complexity of their cognitive and problem-solving tasks.
A second relates to the nature of the evolutionary environments analyzed, and in particular whether the focus is upon “small-world” set-ups versus an
“open-ended” dynamics allowing for various forms of endogenously generated novelty.
Third, at a methodological level, a crucial issue concerns the degree of phenomenological discipline to which models subscribe in such significant respects as agents’ cognitive abilities, learning mechanisms, behavioral rules, interaction format, etc.
And, finally, there is the question of what the various models are meant to interpret, and what testing criteria they set for themselves.
It is clear from this brief assessment of the state of the art that wide differences persist across all these dimensions. The hopeful message is that, at the least, all the reviewed perspectives subscribe to the “dynamics first”
commitments discussed above: interpreting change means telling, in one way or another, a process story rather than a “rationalization” of how what exist may coherently be accounted for. But this is certainly not enough to yield a consistent evolutionary interpretation of economic dynamics. The challenge ahead, as we see it, involves a painstaking reassessment of the microfoundations characterizing what agents do, how they learn, their interactions and the ways all that is embedded into institutional structures and “habits of thought” that shape the possible worlds achievable at any point in time. Certainly, for economists, that reassessment requires more attention to the wealth of evidence from other disciplines, from psychology to political science. The upside of such inquiry might be that the descriptive analysis of observed courses of individual and collective behavior is freed (at last) from the conceptual prison of a deductive, prescriptive theory of action.
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