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The integration process between evolutionary approach and conventional economic analysis is very essential for the next development of economic studies, especially in the fundamental concepts of modern economics: supply and demand analysis. In this presentation, we use the concept of meme to explore evolution of demand. This study offers an evolutionary model of demand, which views utility as a function of the distance between the two types of sequences of memes (memeplex), which represent economic product and consumer preference. It is very different from the conventional approach of demand, which only views utility as a function of quantity. This modification provides an opportunity to see innovation and transformation of consumer preferences in the demand perspective. Innovation is seen as a change in sequence of memes in economic products, while the transformation of consumer behavior is defined as a change in the aligning memes of consumer preference. Demand quantity is the result of the selection process. This model produces some interesting characteristics, such as: (i) quantitative and qualitative properties of evolution of demand, (ii) relationship between consumer behavior and properties of evolution of demand that occurred and (iii) power law on the distribution of product lifetime. At the end we show the improvement of utility function, in the concept of meme, might create a new landscape for the further development of economics. Keywords Evolutionary economics, memetics, demand, evolution, innovation, transformation of consumer behavior Introduction In 1890, Alfred Marshall created a “machinery” to enhance the Adam Smith’s system: the principles of supply and demand [1,2]. He compared supply and demand to the combination of the blades of scissors, each is necessary to determine price. This approach is one of the fundamental concepts of modern economics and responsible in transforming “political economy” into the science of “economics” [3]. Thus, Marshall was an influential figure in the development of neoclassical economics, or today, we can comfortably refer to mainstream economics. On the other side, Joseph Schumpeter challenged the dynamic conception of the economy in place of the static structure of economics [4]. The works of Marshall and Schumpeter are commonly perceived as two of opposite perspectives: the stereotyped view on Marshall as the synthesizer of neoclassical economics and on Schumpeter as the theorist of economic development. Marshall would never have said that all problems are solved forever at the moment. He was fully aware that he was building an essentially temporary theoretical structure. This perspective carried on an evolutionary vision that, in his own words: "make economic biology the Mecca of the economist and not mechanics” [5] Schumpeter asserted himself as one of the first economists to realize that economics is an evolutionary science [6]. Unfortunately, this evolutionary perspective was not taken seriously [7,8]. His contributions to economic analysis are well-recognized, but his evolutionary economics seems to have fallen on barren ground. In the early 1980s, evolutionary economics emerged as a branch of economic theory [9]. The difference between the mainstream economics and evolutionary economics is more clearly appreciated if we introduce the idea of qualitative changes: development of economic systems is not just a bigger replica of previous times [10]. It contains new entities that have different qualitative properties. The idea of qualitative change gives an opportunity to capture three important phenomena in economic life: innovations, product substitutions and transformation of consumer behaviors. Conventional economic analysis is developed with an assumption of identical product. In reality, no different firms produce identical products. There is a competition or substitution between new products and old products, either of the same or different firms. In spite of the fact that evolutionary economics gives an opportunity for a more realistic view on economy, it has some problems. First, cultural or economic evolution is not equal with biological evolution. Second, there is no relational structure to communicate between evolutionary perspective and conventional economic analysis. The first problem can be solved by using memetics point of view. Richard Dawkins introduced this concept in motivation of seeing the cultural evolution in the sense of natural selection [11]. Memetics is now widely learned as complex adaptive system [12]. One of practical and realistic standpoint in economic problem, we can view meme being the evolutionary cultural object as the smallest unit of information by which we can identify and use to explain the evolution process [13]. This outlook gives us some progressive results, ranging from the arrival of new method to infer or estimate the evolutionary history and relationship among empirical data of cultural and economic objects [14-19], simulating the innovation of technological artifacts [20], and memetic engineering [21-24]. At the present time the main puzzle is only the second one, the Marshall's integration, or how to assimilate and bridge the gap between evolutionary perspective and conventional economic analysis, specifically in the fundamental concepts of modern economics: supply and demand analysis. In this presentation, we use memetics approach to study economic evolution. This exploration is limited to the demand side, which is just only one single blade of the Marshall’s scissors. Proposal Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between given ends and scarce means which have alternative uses [25]. The fundamental economic problem is about scarcity and choice since there are only a limited amount of resources available to produce the unlimited amount of goods and services we desire. In economics, choice is typically explained by using the concept of utility: the amount of satisfaction or pleasure that somebody gains from consuming a commodity or service. The basic problem is how to measure utility. We try to observe this problem as a measurement process. There are two components in measurement process: object and device. In economic choice, an economic product is a “measurement object” and consumer preference becomes a “measurement device”. Economic products and consumer preference transform over time dynamically. The first primary element of evolution of demand a.k.a.: consumer preferences on products in market, is innovation. Entrepreneurial innovation destroys the value of existing physical and human capital in order to emerging the new value of the new ones [4]. Economic product continues to grow from time to time [26,27]. Consider, for example, the development of computing device (from punched card technology to modern computers), mobile telephone (from analog cellular telephony to wideband mobile communication), photographic equipment (from camera obscura to digital camera), and so on. The second primary element of demand progress is transformation of the consumer preference’s itself over time and evolutionary epochs. Conventional model of economic analysis assumes that consumer’s preferences are fixed and exogenous to the influence of market competitors [28]. In real life, individual consumer changes her product preferences [4]. A consumer does not select a product simply by perceiving product attributes, but their preferences are modified by the behavior of others [29-30]. Evolution of demand process is explored by using memetics point of view. There are two kinds of (sequences of) memes (memeplex) represent an economic products and signify a consumer’s preference. Innovation is defined as the change in sequence of memes on particular economic product. Thus, transformation of consumer behaviors can be viewed as collective changes in the sequence of meme in the minds of consumers reflecting preferences over products. Here, consumer’s utility is formulated from the “distance” between sequence of memes as reflected by the economic products 4 and the memes of consumer’s preference. We choose to use the Hamming distance approach, which is modified by incorporating asymmetric factor between economic product and consumer preference.()，英语毕业论文，英语论文题目 |
