Exponential Expansion in Evolutionary Economics: A Model Proposition

Abstract

This article attempts to solve current problems of conceptual fragmentation within the field of evolutionary economics. One of the problems is that the field suffers from an assemblage of fragmented and scattered concepts (Boschma and Martin 2010). We propose a solution to this problem in the form of a model of exponential expansion. The model outlines the overall structure and function of the economy as exponential expansion. The pictographic model describes four axiomatic concepts — interactive, directional, emerging, and expanding — and their exponential nature. Taken as a whole, it provides the rudimentary aspects of an economic system within an analytical perspective. We argue that the main dynamic processes of the evolutionary perspective can be reduced to these four concepts. We evaluate the model in the light of Thomas Kuhn's notion of scientific paradigms and criteria for a good theory (1977, 1996). Thus, we aim at augmenting and assimilating the scattered body of concepts, presently residing within the field of evolutionary economics, by presenting an intuitive framework applicable to the theoretical and analytical corpus of contemporary literature.