Chapter 4 Elements of an Evolutionary Approach to Comparative Economic Studies

This chapter delineates an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems and illustrates its usefulness via an exemplary application to recent developments in the European Union. The first part of the chapter describes the meta-theoretical foundations of the approach, i.e. its particular ontological and epistemological vantage points. This allows for an easier comparison (and, potentially, triangulation) with other approaches to comparative analyses, and already provides for some practical guidelines for applied work. The second part applies the approach and studies polarization patterns in the European Union. While this application is not meant as a fully self-contained analysis, it not only illustrates how the concepts of the approach can be operationalized and applied in practice, but also the application of several empirical methods that can be used fruitfully within such an evolutionary analysis. The chapter concludes with a non-exhaustive list of concepts and topics that are particularly insightful to consider when conducting an analysis in the spirit of an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems

Chapter 4 Elements of an Evolutionary Approach to Comparative Economic Studies

This chapter delineates an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems and illustrates its usefulness via an exemplary application to recent developments in the European Union. The first part of the chapter describes the meta-theoretical foundations of the approach, i.e. its particular ontological and epistemological vantage points. This allows for an easier comparison (and, potentially, triangulation) with other approaches to comparative analyses, and already provides for some practical guidelines for applied work. The second part applies the approach and studies polarization patterns in the European Union. While this application is not meant as a fully self-contained analysis, it not only illustrates how the concepts of the approach can be operationalized and applied in practice, but also the application of several empirical methods that can be used fruitfully within such an evolutionary analysis. The chapter concludes with a non-exhaustive list of concepts and topics that are particularly insightful to consider when conducting an analysis in the spirit of an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems

Elements of an evolutionary approach to comparative economic studies: Complexity, systemism, and path dependent development

This chapter delineates an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems and illustrates its usefulness via an exemplary application to recent developments in the European Union. The first part of the chapter describes the meta-theoretical foundations of the approach, i.e. its particular ontological and epistemological vantage points. This allows for an easier comparison (and, potentially, triangulation) with other approaches to comparative analyses, and already provides for some practical guidelines for applied work. The second part applies the approach and studies polarization patterns in the European Union. While this application is not meant as a fully self-contained analysis, it not only illustrates how the concepts of the approach can be operationalized and applied in practice, but also the application of several empirical methods that can be used fruitfully within such an evolutionary analysis. The chapter concludes with a non-exhaustive list of concepts and topics that are particularly insightful to consider when conducting an analysis in the spirit of an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems

Elements of an evolutionary approach to comparative economic studies: Complexity, systemism, and path dependent development

This chapter delineates an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems and illustrates its usefulness via an exemplary application to recent developments in the European Union. The first part of the chapter describes the meta-theoretical foundations of the approach, i.e. its particular ontological and epistemological vantage points. This allows for an easier comparison (and, potentially, triangulation) with other approaches to comparative analyses, and already provides for some practical guidelines for applied work. The second part applies the approach and studies polarization patterns in the European Union. While this application is not meant as a fully self-contained analysis, it not only illustrates how the concepts of the approach can be operationalized and applied in practice, but also the application of several empirical methods that can be used fruitfully within such an evolutionary analysis. The chapter concludes with a non-exhaustive list of concepts and topics that are particularly insightful to consider when conducting an analysis in the spirit of an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems

Path dependence

This short paper explains the theory of path dependence and clarifies its relation to concepts such as positive feedback or lock-in, arguing that path dependence is a core theoretical element of political economy in general, and institutional and evolutionary economics in particular. We first clarify the core conceptual elements of path dependence, show how it is relevant in a wide variety of problems and approaches, and situate these diverse applications in a common theoretical understanding that can be synthesized as a general mechanism. We then discuss the different ways in which path dependence has been theorized in evolutionary-institutional economics and related schools of thought. Finally, we present some archetypical models of path dependent processes

(Mis)Measuring Competitiveness: the Quantification of a Malleable Concept in the European Semester

This paper studies the conceptualization and quantification of 'competitiveness' within the main policy coordination framework of the EU, the European Semester. This topic warrants attention since 'competitiveness' is not only of central importance in the European policy discourse, but also a theoretically ambiguous and malleable concept with conflicting accentuations, all of which are subject of considerable academic and political debate. By investigating the translation of competition as a contested theoretical concept into concrete indicators within a legally binding document, the paper produces three main insights that deserve further attention, both scientifically and politically. First, the indicators of the semester mainly measure cost rather than technological competitiveness, indicating a constriction of the concept at the operational level. Second, while EU policy documents regularly stress the competitiveness of the European Union as a whole, the indicators in the semester measure individual country competitiveness. Finally, the indicators in the Semester measure how the competitiveness of single Member States changes over time, not how they perform relative to others. This shallows the heterogeneity of countries, which is problematic given recent findings according to which absolute differentials of competitiveness across Member States is one important driver of accelerating polarization patterns in the Union

(Mis)measuring competitiveness: The quantification of a malleable concept in the European Semester

This paper studies the conceptualization and quantification of 'competitiveness' within the main policy coordination framework of the EU, the European Semester. This topic warrants attention since 'competitiveness' is not only of central importance in the European policy discourse, but also a theoretically ambiguous and malleable concept with conflicting accentuations, all of which are subject of considerable academic and political debate. By investigating the translation of competition as a contested theoretical concept into concrete indicators within a legally binding document, the paper produces three main insights that deserve further attention, both scientifically and politically. First, the indicators of the semester mainly measure cost rather than technological competitiveness, indicating a constriction of the concept at the operational level. Second, while EU policy documents regularly stress the competitiveness of the European Union as a whole, the indicators in the semester measure individual country competitiveness. Finally, the indicators in the Semester measure how the competitiveness of single Member States changes over time, not how they perform relative to others. This shallows the heterogeneity of countries, which is problematic given recent findings according to which absolute differentials of competitiveness across Member States is one important driver of accelerating polarization patterns in the Union

Standortwettbewerb und Deindustrialisierung: Das Beispiel MAN als Lehrbuchfall

Dieser Beitrag illustriert theoretische Argumente zu den Charakteristika vergangener und gegenwärtiger Globalisierungsprozesse am Beispiel des (ehemaligen) MAN-Produktionsstandortes Steyr. Dabei wird gezeigt, wie sich allgemeine Dynamiken verstärkter internationaler Eigentumskonzentration und Arbeitsteilung sowie ihre gesellschaftlichen Folgen - wie geringere staatliche Regulierungskapazität oder stärkere Machtasymmetrien - an einem konkreten Beispiel abbilden. Darüber hinaus weist der Beitrag auf weiterführende Aspekte hin, die für eine politische Diskussion der Folgen standortpolitischer Entscheidungen von Konzernzentralen relevant erscheinen, insbesondere den internationalen Standortwettbewerb und seine konkrete Ausprägung auf europäischer Ebene. Diese Ausführungen zeigen, dass am Gemeinwohl orientierte institutionelle Einbettung der Globalisierung notwendig ist, aber nur gelingen kann, wenn politischen Maßnahmen auf lokaler und internationaler Ebene komplementär ausgestaltet werden

Degrowth and the Global South? How institutionalism can complement a timely discourse on ecologically sustainable development in an unequal world

The goal of this paper is twofold: first, it assesses the current state of collaboration between institutionalist economics and the academic degrowth discourse on the topic of global inequalities. Since a systematic literature review of the current degrowth discourse shows that the level of such collaboration is limited, the second goal of the paper is to outline avenues through which institutionalist scholars could contribute to the current academic degrowth discourse. These include the provision of theories of institutional change, a methodological reflection of selected formal models, and substantive insights on the co-evolution of institutions and technological change

Systemism

This entry discusses the concept of "systemism", elaborates how it implicitly underpinned most seminal works of evolutionary-institutional economics, and explains how future research would benefit from making the systemist nature of evolutionary economics more explicit. More precisely, the paper clarifies the ontological and epistemological claims associated with systemism, and describes how the explicit use of systemism can support a pluralist meta-paradigm in heterodox economics and political economy in general, and evolutionary-institutional economics research in particular