Tim Wakeley

Conjectures about future wants: some insights from evolutionary economics with reference to digital photography

Inappropriate conjectures of how customers will see new products can result in poor sales when strategists venture into uncharted territory. Here we try to show how evolutionary economics, broadly defined, can help managers make better conjectures. We first examine the implications of consumers choosing to buy products on the basis of hierarchical checklists for product characteristics rather than making trade-offs between characteristics in the manner often assumed. We then examine how strategic myopia and a misunderstanding of the role of product standards can arise because managers are blinkered in their understanding of the context in which consumers make choices and use products. When firms move from a product based on one technology to a product based on a new one, the role of product standards may change completely. Our analysis is illustrated throughout with examples, with special attention paid to the case of Kodak and the development of digital photography.

Price-based versus Standards-based Approaches to Reducing Car Addiction and Other Environmentally Destructive Activities

It is argued that mainstream economics, with its present methodological approach, is limited in its ability to analyze and develop adequate public policy to deal with current environmental problems and sustainable development. This book provides an alternative approach. Building on the strengths and insights of Post Keynesian and ecological economics and incorporating cutting edge work in such areas as economic complexity, bounded rationality and socio-economic dynamics, the contributors to this book provide a trans-disciplinary approach to deal with a broad range of environmental concerns.

The Story of Perfect Competition and the Problem of Cognitive Dissonance

The model of perfect competition from the perspective of an active learner. The story told about the competitive process is shown to be problematic when students try to reconstruct it for themselves. In particular it has great potential to generate cognitive dissonance. An alternative approach to teaching competition as process is outlined which is based on ontological foundations and inductive learning rather than deductive analysis from core axioms.