outcomes are highly unpredictable. As a result, the broader the scope of activity, the more
likely it is that a technological discovery or development will fit into the firm’s existing
product structure (Jovanovic and Gilbert 1993). On a different note, evolutionary
perspectives (which have recently gained quite a lot of attention; Nelson 2020) embody
a valuable tool for interpreting the mechanisms of economic adaptation and survival in
the everchanging contemporary economic landscape. This evolutionary approach, deeply
rooted in the principles articulated by Hayek (1988), emphasizes how firms and
economies, much like organisms in nature, evolve through learning and adaptation. More
particularly, Universal Darwinism, an extension of these ideas, suggests that Darwinian
principles of variation, selection, and retention, far from being limited to biological
entities, are equally applicable to economic systems at both macro and micro levels
(Hodgson 2002).
Evolutionary frameworks help explain not only economic balances and imbalances but
also highlight the intrinsic capacity of firms to adjust to new environmental pressures by
diversifying their activities and strategies in order to spread risks and increase resilience,
thus mimicking biological diversity which enhances survival prospects in the face of
external shocks. Diversification strategies are informed, then, by the understanding that
complex economic ecosystems—much like their biological counterparts—are better
equipped to handle changes and disruptions if they comprise several interconnected
elements rather than a single, unitary entity.
Hayek ([1976] 1982; 1988) and Campbell’s (1974; 1987) framework for cultural
evolution extends Darwin’s theory to the inheritance of civilization, encompassing
institutions, customs, practices, tools, and methods of performing activities. It also
involves the selective accumulation of skills, technology, behavioral patterns, beliefs,
organizational structure, and economic systems. Cultural evolution can be seen as a
method of acquiring knowledge through iterative experimentation and learning from the
tools, rules, belief systems, and cultural achievements of previous generations (Krstić
2012). However, challenges such as monopolies and oligopolies can modify the
competitive environment, while moral hazard and tax evasion can skew the selection
process, allowing inefficient enterprises to remain in operation (Rogers 1972).
Diversification is closely linked to complexity, which may be affected, as explored by
Ben Saad et al. (2023), by spatial heterogeneity and discontinuity. If the profound
economic transformations faced my most global economy have created opportunities for
both developing and developed countries alike, only few actually manage to adapt to these
new conditions, resulting in significant differences in growth rates among countries that
have been largely discussed in theories of economic growth. Economic progress
necessarily involves the adaptation of production processes, with enhanced productive
capacities, greater product diversity, and increased export competitiveness culminating in
the trade of more complex products whose added value generates advantage to the
exporting country (Ben Saad et al. 2023). Product composition reflects, in turn, the
productive knowledge of countries (Hausman and Hidalgo 2013), which may as well
exhibit levels of productive complexity comparable to those of regional spaces beyond
national borders, thus giving credit to the hypothesis of interdependencies existing at
transnational level (Ben Saad et al. 2023).