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Processes analogous to ecological interactions and dispersal shape the dynamics of economic activities

Victor Boussange, Didier Sornette, Heike Lischke, Loïc Pellissier

arXiv 23 Jan 2023 · Econometrics

arXiv:2301.09486 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

The processes of ecological interactions, dispersal and mutations shape the dynamics of biological communities, and analogous eco-evolutionary processes acting upon economic entities have been proposed to explain economic change. This hypothesis is compelling because it explains economic change through endogenous mechanisms, but it has not been quantitatively tested at the global economy level. Here, we use an inverse modelling technique and 59 years of economic data covering 77 countries to test whether the collective dynamics of national economic activities can be characterised by eco-evolutionary processes. We estimate the statistical support of dynamic community models in which the dynamics of economic activities are coupled with positive and negative interactions between the activities, the spatial dispersal of the activities, and their transformations into other economic activities. We find strong support for the models capturing positive interactions between economic activities and spatial dispersal of the activities across countries. These results suggest that processes akin to those occurring in ecosystems play a significant role in the dynamics of economic systems. The strength-of-evidence obtained for each model varies across countries and may be caused by differences in the distance between countries, specific institutional contexts, and historical contingencies. Overall, our study provides a new quantitative, biologically inspired framework to study the forces shaping economic change.

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70
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Victor Boussange, Pau Vilimelis, and Loïc Pellissier (2022) Mini-batching ecological data to improve ecosystem models with machine learning self1.00063100%
2Dany Bahar, Ricardo Hausmann, and Cesar A. Hidalgo (2014) Neighbors and the evolution of the comparative advantage of nations: Evidence of international knowledge diffusion?0.81142100%
3César A. Hidalgo (2021) Economic complexity theory and applications0.81142100%
4Serguei Saavedra, Felix Reed-tsochas, and Brian Uzzi (2009) A simple model of bipartite cooperation for ecological and organizational networks0.81142100%
5Andrea Caragliu and Peter Nijkamp (2016) Space and knowledge spillovers in European regions: the impact of different forms of proximity on spatial knowledge diffusion0.73732100%
6Wolfgang Keller (2004) International Technology Diffusion0.73732100%
7Everett M Rogers (2003) Diffusion of Innovations0.73732100%
8Otto Andersen (1993) On the Internationalization Process of Firms: A Critical Analysis0.64422100%
9Ron Boschma, Rikard Eriksson, and Urban Lindgren (2008) How does labour mobility affect the performance of plants? The importance of relatedness and geographical proximity0.64422100%
10Guy Bunin (2017) Ecological communities with Lotka-Volterra dynamics0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 71 scored citations.