Below is a suggested reading list for someone interested in the intersection of economics and evolutionary biology. If you have any recommendations for additions, please let me know.

1. Books at the intersection of economics and evolutionary biology

2. While not directly at the intersection, other books containing core ideas relating to my thinking on evolution and economics

3. Books on evolutionary economics and complexity theory

Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter’s (1985) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change: The seminal book that established evolutionary economics as a serious field. Eric Beinhocker’s (2006) Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics: The best readable discussion of the field of “evolutionary economics” and the application of complexity theory to economics.

4. Articles at the intersection of economics and evolutionary biology (generally technical economic papers)

4A. The evolution of preferences

Becker, Gary (1976) Altruism, Egoism and Genetic Fitness: Economics and Sociobiology, Journal of Economic Literature 14(3), pp.817-826: One of the earliest calls for biology to be used in economics.

De Fraja, Gianni (2009) The origin of utility: Sexual selection and conspicuous consumption, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 72(1), pp.52-69: The desire for conspicuous consumption was shaped by sexual selection and is consistent with a utility maximising economic framework.

Hansson, Ingemar and Charles Stuart (1990) Malthusian Selection of Preferences American Economic Review 80(3), pp.529-544: The earliest article I am aware of that explicitly examines the evolution of an economic preference.

Hirshleifer, Jack (1977) Economics from a Biological Viewpoint Journal of Law of Economics 20(1), pp.1-52: Another of the earliest calls for biology to be used in economics.

Rayo, Luis and Gary Becker (2007) Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness Journal of Political Economy 155(2), pp.302-337: An argument that if happiness is a tool through which human choices are directed to evolutionary goals, constraints on our feelings may lead to relative preferences and habit formation.

Rogers, Alan (1994) Evolution of Time Preference by Natural Selection American Economic Review 83(3), pp.460-481: One of the first articles to propose an evolutionary basis to time preference.

Robson, Arthur and Larry Samuelson (2009) The Evolution of Time Preference with Aggregate Uncertainty American Economic Review 99(5), pp.1925-1953: A great article on how risk affects the optimal rate of time preference. Arthur Robson is the king of the study of the evolution of preferences, as a scan of the papers on his home page shows.

Robson, Arthur and Larry Samuelson (2009) The Evolutionary Foundations of Preferences in Benhabib, Jess, Alberto Bisin and Matthew O. Jackson, Handbook of Social Economics (ungated working version here): A thorough and excellent review of the literature on the evolution of preferences.

Rubin, Paul and Chris Paul II (1979) An Evolutionary Model of Taste for Risk Economic Inquiry 17(4), pp.585-596: A fantastic example of how an evolutionary framework can yield new results.

4B. Genoeconomics

Beauchamp, Jonathan P. (2011) Molecular Genetics and Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(4), pp.57–82: A good discussion of the potential use of molecular genetics in economics and economic policy (my post here).

Benjamin, Daniel J. et al. (2012) The Promises and Pitfalls of Genoeconomics, Annual Review of Economics, 4(1), pp.627–662 (ungated working paper here): A sound reminder to take a lot of genoeconomics research with a grain of salt.

4C. Evolution and economic dynamics

Clark, Gregory (2008) In defense of the Malthusian interpretation of history, European Review of Economic History, 12(2), pp.175-199 (ungated working paper here): This article is a response to critiques of A Farewell to Alms (critiques here, here, here and here), but it expands on some important points in the book.

Galor, Oded and Omer Moav (2002) Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4), pp.1133–1191: The seminal article proposing that evolution affected economic growth through a genetically based preference for quality or quantity of children. With Juerg Weber and Boris Baer, I have simulated and extended this paper.

Spolaore, Enrico and Romain Wacziarg (2013) How Deep Are the Roots of Economic Development?, Journal of Economic Literature, 51(2), pp.325–369: An outstanding discussion of the deep roots of economic development and how persistent differences in development are.

4D. Macro-genoeconomics

Ashraf, Quamrul and Oded Galor (2013) The Out of Africa Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development , American Economic Review, 103(1), pp.1-49 (ungated working paper here): Genetic diversity has positive effects on innovation but hampers trade, meaning that moderate levels of genetic diversity gives the right mix (I have written a series of posts on this paper, all of which can be found through this post).

Spolaore, Enrico and Romain Wacziarg (2009) The Diffusion of Development Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(2) pp.469-529 (ungated working paper here): An argument that the genetic distance between populations acts as a barrier to the transfer of technology, leading to income differences between groups (my post here).

5. Articles on evolutionary economics and complexity theory

Alchian (1950) Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory Journal of Political Economy 58(3), pp.211-221: The 1950 proposal that examining the actions of economic agents as trial and error, and adaptive and imitative behaviour may be a better basis for examining economic behaviour than perfectly rational profit maximisation.