Filip Lubinski

You can already download my book review of Michael Roos’ “Principles of Complexity Economics: Concepts, Methods and Applications” (2024) from the SSRN.

Read the summary of what might be the first comprehensive textbook in complexity economics here:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5001563

The title of Roos’ textbook brings to mind the 19th-century tradition of using the term ‘principles’ to name the treatises with ambition to explain the rules followed by the economy. The tradition is visible both in the works of these authors calling their discipline ‘political economy’ (Ricardo, 1817; Sismondi, 1819; Malthus, 1820; Mill, 1848) and those using its modern name of ‘economics’ (Menger, 1871). The most influential for the 20th-century mainstream, in power until this day, was the one published in 1890 by Alfred Marshall. Despite all that influence, the standard contemporary theory seemingly ignores his statement that ‘the Mecca of the economist lies in economic biology.’ Roos takes this idea seriously. As a result, his comprehensive presentation of an alternative to the mainstream – complexity economics – is full of insights from natural sciences, which could help us to understand the processes taking place in the modern economy.