The paper provides a discusion on evolutionary efficiency criteria

What is it about?

Together with the concepts ofequilibrium, scarcity, choosing, etc., efficiency is at the core of economics. However, in an evolutionary context, efficiency raises several issues concerning to rationality, the complex evolving nature ofthe economy, economic change as the fundamental economic problem, and the role ofexpectations—that link purposeful action to actual action. The main goal ofthis paper is to provide some necessary elements to accommodate an efficiency criterion within an evolutionary theory ofthe production of action. In a nutshell, an evolving complex system could be considered as being (or “becoming”) efficient if the agents’ intentions could “materialize” in actions that would give rise to real states of affairs which, essentially, were compatible (even similar; never identical of course) with what it was expected (ex-ante) when the action “plans” were elaborated and selected. We set out this criterion as a micro-criterion and then we explore an extension of it at a systemic level using the theory ofmeso-level connections.

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Why is it important?

It provides a discussion on efficiency in a complex evolving system.