Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics, by Eric D. Beinhocker, Harvard Business School Press and Random House 2006. ISBN-10: 157851777X, ISBN-13: 978-1578517770

Selected as one of Amazon's "Top Ten Business Books of 2006"

"A brilliant, thought-provoking and wide-ranging book… For me, it was more than the business book of 2006; it was the book of 2006." - Martin Wolf, Financial Times

"In the long history of economic thought a dozen or so works stand out as seminal in their exquisite blend of data and theory and epochal boldness in attempting to answer a big question. The newest addition to the canon is Eric Beinhocker's The Origin of Wealth."  - Michael Shermer, New York Sun's "Best Books of 2006"

"Mr. Beinhocker is a master synthesizer… He shreds the silliness and outright intellectual dishonesty that has kept so many flawed economic theories in contemporary curricula and policy debates for so long. …[His] commitment to business relevance [also] makes his book a usable read as well as a good one."  - Michael Schrage, Strategy + Business "Best Business Books of 2006"

Download Origin of Wealth: Chapter 1

Pdf format, 192kb, 24pages.

Visit Origin of Wealth Mckinsey Official Website

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 McKinsey Global Institute Senior Fellow Eric Beinhocker asks in his groundbreaking book, The Origin of Wealth.

Beinhocker explores how new theories of  “complexity economics” are turning a hundred years of economic theory on its head and can provide us with important new insights on issues in strategy, organization, finance, and public policy.

Book Description:

In the Origin of Wealth, Eric Beinhocker offers a thorough and convincing new way to think about economic growth and business management. The author begins by exploring the roots of modern economic theory and ultimately declares it outmoded and wrong. Instead, he suggests, markets and growth can best be explained by drawing on the emerging field of complexity economics: the study of markets and social systems as complex adaptive systems. Although biological metaphors in business have become familiar (i.e., organizations are living organisms), Beinhocker moves beyond metaphor to explain the revolutions in science that will inevitably change the way we think about economics, competition, and business.

The Origin of Wealth raises important questions such as: How can one create strategy in uncertain and fast moving environments? Why is it hard for large organizations to be innovative and how should we organize for better results? What role should governments play in this new era?

About the Author:

Eric D. Beinhocker is a senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute. Fortune magazine named him a "Business Leader of the next Century," and his writings on business and economics have appeared in a variety of publications, including the Financial Times.

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