Heterogeneity, competition, and macroeconomic dynamics

The paper presents an evolutionary model in which certain regularities in macroeconomic dynamics, such as in income and labour productivity growth, are the outcome of far-from-equilibrium interactions among heterogeneous, boundedly rational, agents. Relatively ordered patterns of change emerge as a collective self-organizing property of the system, while individual agents are always undergoing processes of mistake-ridden innovation, imitation, and market selection. Technological dynamics is endogenous and the rate of innovation is primarily constrained by the abilities of agents to exploit notional innovative opportunities; these are generally well in excess of what agents are able to master. Innovations influence aggregate dynamics via (i) time-consuming diffusion among producers and users, and (ii) associated demand impulses. Microheterogeneity has a paramount importance for the aggregate behaviour of the system.