Rethinking Economic Behaviour: How the Economy Really Works

Treating the market economy as a complex adaptive system offers a better explanation of how it works than does the mechanical analogy of neoclassical equilibrium theory. The nonlinear interactions of millions of individual human beings, coupled with the influence of chance, results in the emergence of markets. Other regularities emerge in the patterns of economic growth, business cycles and in the spatial locations of economic activity. This work demonstrates the implication of complexity theory for business and government decision making, and concludes with an assessment of the future evolution of the market economy.