Causality and regularity in a ‘creative world’

Abstract

With its ability to incessantly create new actions and innovations the economy presents itself as an open, evolving (self-transforming) system. In their ‘economics for a creative world’ Koppl et al. (2014) try to account for the features of that system and discuss methodological consequences for its analysis. Claiming that ‘ . . . novelty and innovation are uncaused’ and that ‘ . . . no laws entail the evolution of the econosphere’ they hold that fundamental scientific principles do not apply. In the present comment it will be argued that both claims are difficult to defend. Causality and law-like hypotheses also apply to novelty and innovation.