Applying the Biological Metaphor of Population Genetics to Economic and Marketing Theory

Abstract

The basic metaphor raises the question: How is regional economic evolution like biological evolution? As mentioned in the Introduction, Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not a perfect fit for economics, and part of the task of this chapter is to explain where the metaphor does not fit.

The chapter begins with an overview of the scope of the metaphor, in order to delimit the parameters of the theory of regional economic evolution. The chapter then describes the basic, elementary biological processes that can be applied to economic evolution. The chapter ends by making a transition from biology to economics, by describing how technology in economics is like genetics in biology.

The evolutionary metaphor works well as long as technology is equivalent to genetics.

Keywords: economic theory, regional economics, technology evolution

JEL Classification: E13