On the Relevance of Genetic Programming to Evolutionary Economics

In this paper, we review the development of artificial adaptive economic agents in evolutionary economics. The review starts from a 1986 paper by Robert Lucas, a Nobel Prize laureate in economics. From there, we shall see how the idea of economic adaptive agents was enriched and implemented by Holland’s two books on genetic algorithms (Holland 1975) and on classifier systems (Holland, et al. 1986). We then examine the impact of Holland’s artificial adaptive agents on two different groups of economists. One was led by Thomas Sargent, representing New Classical Economics, and the other by Brian Arthur, standing for Santa Fe Institute Economics. A moot point brought here is that the spirit of the genetic algorithm (GA) (John Holland’s legacy) is lost in mainstream economics, but is reserved in SFI economics. We then shift to Koza’s genetic programming, and show how John Holland’s legacy was further expanded in evolutionary economics.