Journal of Economic Geography 7 (2007) pp. 573–601 doi:10.1093/jeg/lbm019 Advance Access Published on 18 June 2007 Complexity thinking and evolutionary economic geography Ron Martin* and Peter Sunley** Abstract Thus far, most of the work towards the construction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn upon a particular version of evolutionary economics, namely the Nelson-Winter framework, which blends Darwinian concepts and metaphors (especially variety, selection, novelty and inheritance) and elements of a behavioural theory of the firm. Much less attention has been directed to an alternative conception based on complexity theory, yet in recent years complexity theory has increasingly been concerned with the general attributes of evolutionary natural and social systems. In this article we explore the idea of the economic landscape as a complex adaptive system. We identify several key notions of what is being called the new ‘complexity economics’, and examine whether and in what ways these can be used to help inform an evolutionary perspective for understanding the uneven development and adaptive transformation of the economic landscape. Keywords: complexity theory, evolution, economic landscape, networks, emergence, regional adaptation JEL classifications: B520 O180 R110 R120 Date submitted: 22 February 2007 Date accepted: 18 March 2007 1. Evolutionary economic geography: in search of conceptual foundations Over the past few years the outline of a new evolutionary paradigm has begun to take shape in economic geography (see, for example, Rigby and Essletzbichler, 1997; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999; Lambooy and Boschma, 2001; Bathelt and Boggs, 2003; Boschma and Frenken, 2003, 2006; Essletzbichler and Rigby, 2004; Hassink, 2005; Martin and Sunley, 2006). Although this paradigm is still in its infancy, certain concepts and approaches have already assumed a prominent role in geographic-evolutionary interpretations of the economic landscape. In particular, most of the work towards the construction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn upon a particular version of evolutionary economics, which blends Nelson and Winter’s evolutionary *Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK. email 5 rlm1@cam.ac.uk 4 **Professor of Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. email 5 P.J.Sunley@soton.ac.uk 4 ß The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org