THE COORDINATION ASPECT OF INSTITUTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO ECONOMIC DYNAMICS

Zoran Stefanovic

Faculty of Economics, University of Nis, Nis, The Republic of Serbia

The paper provides an insight into the dominant trends of contemporary evolutionary economics and outlines the important issues related to the articulation of this approach in thinking about the economy. The paper also affirms a proposition on institutions as carrier structures of socio-economic evolution, whose numerous effects at the societal level are decoded through the coordination function. In addition to the market, the process of coordination also employs other non-market institutional structures, whose profile and operational principles are the product of the trajectories of cultural and historical evolution, different among social orders. Projects aimed at the transformation of the economic system are to be sensitized to an objectively conditioned diversity of the institutional structures of the world economy, and in this sense, should be very careful in the installation of „universal” reform solutions.

Keywords: generalized Darwinism, replicator, interactor, institutions, coordination

JEL Classification: B15, B25, B52, E02, E14

Economic Horizons, 2015, Vol. 17, No 2, pp. 123-134; Published online 25 August 2015; doi: 10.5937/ekonhor1502125S