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Innovation, Markets, And Evolution, Mitch Green

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper approaches innovation from an evolutionary perspective. Literature spanning a broad range of traditions in economics is considered, to include Institutionalist, Schumpeterian, post-Keynesian, and growth theorists. Key systemic changes are examined in the context of prevailing technological and social institutions. It is argued that expectation-fixing effects such as path-dependence in investment and innovation provide structure to a social network of market institutions that seek to validate money contracts. The institution of money is considered as a center of power in the system and affects the course of innovation. Money as the unit of account becomes the object of …