When Santa Fe Institute scientists first started working on economics more than thirty years ago, many of their insights, approaches, and tools were considered beyond heterodox. These once-disparaged approaches included network economics, agents of limited rationality, and institutional evolution—all topics that are now increasingly considered mainstream. SFI continues to expand the boundary of our economic understanding by pioneering fields as diverse as collective intelligence and organi...

When Santa Fe Institute scientists first started working on economics more than thirty years ago, many of their insights, approaches, and tools were considered beyond heterodox. These once-disparaged approaches included network economics, agents of limited rationality, and institutional evolution-all topics that are now increasingly considered mainstream. SFI continues to expand the boundary of our economic understanding by pioneering fields as diverse as collective intelligence and organi...

By understanding how and when common sense fails, we can improve our understanding of the present and better plan for the future.Drawing on the latest scientific research, along with a wealth of historical and contemporary examples, Watts shows how common sense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into believing that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and econom...

“A hugely valuable contribution. . . . In setting out a defence of the best in economics, Rodrik has also provided a goal for the discipline as a whole.” —Martin Sandbu, Financial TimesIn the wake of the financial crisis and the Great Recession, economics seems anything but a science. In this sharp, masterfully argued book, Dani Rodrik, a leading critic from within, takes a close look at economics to examine when it falls short and when it works, to give a...

The pioneering young scientist whose work on the structure of small worlds has triggered an avalanche of interest in networks.In this remarkable book, Duncan Watts, one of the principal architects of network theory, sets out to explain the innovative research that he and other scientists are spearheading to create a blueprint of our connected planet. Whether they bind computers, economies, or terrorist organizations, networks are everywhere in the real world, yet only recently have...

From the inability of wealth to make us happier, to our catastrophic blindness to the credit crunch, "Economyths" reveals ten ways in which economics has failed us all. Forecasters predicted a prosperous year in 2008 for financial markets - in one influential survey the average prediction was for an eleven per cent gain. But by the end of the year, the Standard and Poor's 500 index - a key economic barometer - was down 38 per cent, and major economies were plunging into recession. Even the...

How ideas in complexity can be used to develop more effective public policyComplexity science—made possible by modern analytical and computational advances—is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking...

"Disequilibrium" is an essay at the intersection of economics, geopolitics, and political and environmental science: it connects the dots between various academic disciplines and does a great job at simplifying the increasing complexity of today's world. It contends that in the foreseeable future, our world will be lurching from one global crisis to the next as it becomes much more susceptible to shocks and surprises than just a few years ago. Consequently, we will all have the impression ...

The entrepreneur has been neglected over the years in formal economic theorizing. Previously there has been only eclectic theories such as human capital theory and network dynamics which discuss certain perspectives of entrepreneurial behaviour. This insightful book closes this gap in entrepreneurship literature. Inspired by modern physics, author Thomas Grebel brings together an evolutionary methodology, along the way implicating quantum, graph, and percolation theory.Here, Grebel...

How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing contro...

Economics has the power to make the world a better, happier and safer place: this book shows you howOur world is in a mess. The challenges of climate change, inequality, hunger and a global pandemic mean our way of life seems more imperilled and society more divided than ever; but economics can help!From parenting to organ donation, housing to anti-social behaviour, economics provides the tools we need to fix the biggest issues of today. Far from being a me...

Evolving Economics is an equally broad historical study of the emergence of neoliberal capitalism in the 20th century; it explores the crises of capitalism and culminates with a 100-year vision of the economy of a more sustainable, egalitarian, and libertarian civilization, one compatible with transformative possibilities glimpsed in Revolutions in Physics.