Creativity in a Theory of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

I construct an economic agent in light of literature discussing entrepreneurship and creativity. It uses the framework provided by John Searle and extended by Caton and López. This construct is applied to a heuristic rendition of Sugarscape (Epstein and Axtell 1996; Wilensky 1999) to simulate an economy comprised of autonomous agents. These agents collectively participate in a process of adaptation that promotes economic coordination. Creativity in the model is generated by these agents and is regulated by a system subject to competitive pressures. Agents have some array of strategy structures and parameters that they alter by experimentation. When a system reaches a persistent state, creativity, as defined by this experimentation, settles to a relatively low level. However, if this system is upset by an exogenous shock, the agents must reorient themselves to the new environment by a process of trial and error in order to form a new regime of coordination.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Agent-based Computational Economics, Schumpeter, Kirzner