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Journal of Economic Geography Advance Access originally published online on June 18, 2007
Journal of Economic Geography 2007 7(5):573-601; doi:10.1093/jeg/lbm019
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© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Complexity thinking and evolutionary economic geography

Ron Martin* and Peter Sunley**

* Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK. email < rlm1{at}cam.ac.uk>
** Professor of Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. email < P.J.Sunley{at}soton.ac.uk>

JEL classifications:: B520, O180, R110, R120

Thus far, most of the work towards the construction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn upon a particular version of evolutionary economics, namely the Nelson-Winter framework, which blends Darwinian concepts and metaphors (especially variety, selection, novelty and inheritance) and elements of a behavioural theory of the firm. Much less attention has been directed to an alternative conception based on complexity theory, yet in recent years complexity theory has increasingly been concerned with the general attributes of evolutionary natural and social systems. In this article we explore the idea of the economic landscape as a complex adaptive system. We identify several key notions of what is being called the new ‘complexity economics’, and examine whether and in what ways these can be used to help inform an evolutionary perspective for understanding the uneven development and adaptive transformation of the economic landscape.

Keywords: complexity theory, evolution, economic landscape, networks, emergence, regional adaptation
Date submitted: 22 February 2007     Date accepted: 18 March 2007


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