The Origin Of Wealth - Hardcover

Beinhocker, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712676589 ISBN 13: 9780712676588

Publisher: Random House Business Books, 2006

Synopsis

What is wealth? How is it created? How can we create more of it for the benefit of individuals, businesses, and society? These are the fundamental questions that economic thinker and writer Eric Beinhocker asks in his groundbreaking book. According to Beinhocker, the field of economics is in the midst of a revolution that promises to overthrow a century of conventional theory and profoundly change our thinking about how the economy works, with major implications for business, finance, and public policy.

About this title

About the Author

Eric D. Beinhocker is a partner at McKinsey & Company and is one of the leaders of its Global Strategy Practice. He has also worked as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and has held research appointments at the Harvard Business School, the MIT Center for Organizational Learning, and the Santa Fe Institute.

From the Back Cover

There is a revolution underway in economics and you need to know about it. Researchers in the new field of 'Complexity Economics' are in the process of overthrowing one hundred years of traditional theory, upending the economic thinking that underpins billions of dollars in business decisions, sends stock markets soaring or crashing and guides governments around the world.

'Economic thinking has changed radically in the last fifteen years. Eric Beinhocker gives us a sparkling tour of the new ideas.'
W. Brian Arthur, Santa Fe Institute

'The freshest look at modern economics in decades.'
Gregor Bailar, CIO and Executive Vice President, Capital One

'A tour de force ... this is a very important book.'
Michael J. Mauboussin, Chief Investment Strategist, Legg Mason

From the Inside Flap

Economics is changing radically. This paradigm shift, the biggest in the field for over a century, will have profound implications for business, government and society for decades to come.

In this groundbreaking book, economic thinker and writer Eric Beinhocker surveys the cutting-edge ideas of the leading economists, physicists, biologists and cognitive scientists who are fundamentally reshaping economics, and brings their work alive for a broad audience.

These researchers argue that the economy is a complex adaptive system , more akin to the brain, the internet or an ecosystem than to the static picture of economic systems portrayed by traditional theory.

In provocative and entertaining fashion, Beinhocker describes how Complexity Economics provides a new explanation for one of the deepest mysteries in the field: the origin of wealth. What is wealth? How is it created? Why has humankind gone from making stone tools in caves to the enormously complex $36.5 trillion global economy today?

The answer according to Beinhocker is evolution. Modern science views evolution as not just a biological phenomenon, but as a general purpose formula for innovation. It is the evolutionary process of differentiation, selection and amplification, acting on designs for technologies, social institutions and businesses that drives growth in the economy over time. If Adam Smith provided the inspiration for economics in the twentieth century, it is Charles Darwin who is providing it in the twenty-first.

If we can understand how evolution creates wealth, then we can better answer the question How can we create more wealth for the benefit of individuals, businesses and society? Beinhocker shows how 'Complexity
Economics' turns conventional wisdom on its head in areas such as business strategy, the design of organisations, the workings of stock markets and public policy.

As sweeping in scope as its title, The Origin of Wealth is a landmark book that shatters orthodox economic theory, and will rewire our thinking about how we came to be here and where we are going.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Business Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0712676589
• ISBN 13: 9780712676588
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 544