W. Brian Arthur

W. Brian Arthur was born in 1945 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He received his BSc in electrical engineering at Queen's University Belfast (1966), an M. A. in Operational Research (1967) at Lancaster University, Lancaster, England, and an M. A. in Mathematics at the University of Michigan (1969). Arthur received his PhD in Operations Research (1973) and an M. A. in Economics (1973) from the University of California, Berkeley.

At age 37, Arthur was the youngest endowed chair holder at Stanford University.Complexity, M. Mitchell Waldrop, first published 1992.

Arthur is the former Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies; Professor of Human Biology, Stanford University, 1983–1996. He is the co-founder of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies[http://www.stanford.edu/group/morrinst/ Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies] at Stanford.

Arthur is one of the distinguished External Research Faculty{{Cite web |url=http://www.santafe.edu/about/people-external-faculty.php |title=External Research Faculty |access-date=28 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012011700/http://santafe.edu/about/people-external-faculty.php |archive-date=12 October 2007 |url-status=dead}} members at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Arthur's long association with the Institute started in 1987 with the introduction and support of Stanford economist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Kenneth Arrow, and Philip Warren Anderson, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Arthur was named as the first director of the interdisciplinary Economics Program at the Institute beginning in 1988. He was named the Citibank Professor at the institute in 1994, with the endowment of Citibank and then-Citibank CEO John S. Reed.{{cite web

| title = Coming from Your Inner Self, Conversation with W. Brian Arthur, Xerox PARC, April 16, 1999, by Joseph Jaworski, Gary Jusela, C. Otto Scharmer

| publisher = [Dialog on Leadership]

| url = http://www.dialogonleadership.org/Arthur-1999.html

| accessdate = 27 October 2007 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20071011023150/http://www.dialogonleadership.org/Arthur-1999.html |archivedate = 11 October 2007}}

He served several terms on the Science Board[http://www.santafe.edu/about/people-science-board.php Science Board], 1988–2006, and Board of Trustees,[http://www.santafe.edu/about/people-trustees.php Board of Trustees] 1994–2004, during his association with the institute.

Arthur was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987.{{cite web|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation {{!}} W. Brian Arthur|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/w-brian-arthur/|website=www.gf.org|accessdate=13 September 2016}} Arthur was also awarded the Schumpeter Prize in economics in 1990,International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society, [http://www.iss-evec.de/schumpeter_prize.htm Schumpeter Prize in Economics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929203056/http://www.iss-evec.de/schumpeter_prize.htm |date=29 September 2007 }} and the (inaugural) Lagrange Prize for complexity science in 2008.

Arthur was awarded an honorary Doctor of Economic Sciences degree from the National University of Ireland (2000), and an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree (Honoris Causa) from Lancaster University on 9 December 2009.

Arthur and several other Santa Fe Institute researchers are profiled extensively in the book Complexity by M. Mitchell Waldrop.

He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Arthur is noted for his seminal works "studying the impacts of positive feedback or increasing returns in economies, and how these increasing returns magnify small, random occurrences in the market place."{{cite web

| title = Legg Mason conference bio for W. Brian Arthur

| publisher = [Legg Mason]

| url = http://www.leggmason.com/billmiller/conference/speakers/arthur.asp

| accessdate = 19 November 2007}} These principles are especially significant in technology-specific industries where network effects commonly occur.^(EL1)

Arthur is one of the early economic researchers in the emerging complexity field. Specifically, his complexity studies focused on the "economics of high technology; how business evolves in an era of high technology; cognition in the economy; and financial markets."{{cite web

| title = Short Background: Brian Arthur

| publisher = Santa Fe Institute

| url = http://www.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Bio_Info/Background.html

| accessdate = 27 October 2007}}

Arthur's comments on the evolution of complexity theory as a different way of seeing and conducting scientific inquiry:

Complexity theory is really a movement of the sciences. Standard sciences tend to see the world as mechanistic. That sort of science puts things under a finer and finer microscope. In biology the investigations go from classifying organisms to functions of organisms, then organs themselves, then cells, and then organelles, right down to protein and enzymes, metabolic pathways, and DNA. This is finer and finer reductionist thinking.

The movement that started complexity looks in the other direction. It’s asking, how do things assemble themselves? How do patterns emerge from these interacting elements? Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It’s important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They’re open-ended. In standard science this hits some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn’t like perpetual novelty.

Arthur's book, The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves, explores his belief that technology undergoes its own evolution, similar to Darwin's theory of evolution in Biology. Arthur's claim is that technology evolves out of earlier existing forms. He goes on to say that economies are not merely a container for these innovations, but rather economies arise as a result of new technological developments.{{cite web

| title = Brian Arthur

| publisher = Santa Fe Institute

| url = http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/

| accessdate = 19 April 2019}}

• Social software (social procedure)
• Inductive reasoning

W. Brian Arthur has published several books, papers, articles and more.For a further selection of papers, articles, lectures and papers, see [http://www.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Papers/Papers.html Some Selected Papers] A selection:

• 1994. [https://books.google.com/books?id=k6Vk5YZRzpEC&q=increasing+returns+and+path+dependence+in+the+economy Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy]. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
• 1996: [https://hbr.org/1996/07/increasing-returns-and-the-new-world-of-business Increasing returns and the new world of business]. Harvard Business Review.

{{cite news

| last1 = Arthur | first1 = W Brian

| title = Increasing returns and the new world of business

| date = 1 July 1996

| work = Harvard Business Review

| location = Brighton, Massachusetts, United States

| issn = 0017-8012

| url = https://hbr.org/1996/07/increasing-returns-and-the-new-world-of-business

| access-date = 2024-10-20

}}

• 1997. The Economy as an Evolving Complex System II, edited with Steven Durlauf and David Lane, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, Series in the Sciences of Complexity.
• 2009. The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves. The Free Press and Penguin Books.
• 2021, "[https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-020-00273-3 Foundations of Complexity Economics]", overview article in Nature.

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/ W. Brian Arthur, External Research Faculty, Santa Fe Institute]
• {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060108100419/http://www.leggmason.com/thoughtleaderforum/2004/conference/transcripts/arthur_trans.asp |date=8 January 2006 |title=Legg Mason Thought Leader Forum 2004 }}, Arthur's remarks plus mind-mapped notes

The book Complexity, by M. Mitchell Waldrop, contains a biographical profile of W. Brian Arthur, and a description of Arthur's work at Stanford and at the Santa Fe Institute.

Source: The Inner Path to Knowledge Creation, by Joseph Jaworski, contains the story of the U-Process and W. Brian Arthur's contribution to its discovery, based on "Coming From Your Inner Self", reference above.

• [https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https://www.strategy-business.com/article/16402?gko=8af4f An Interview with W. Brian Arthur] by Joel Kurtzman / April 1, 1998 / Second Quarter 1998 / Issue 11 (originally published by Booz & Company) ([https://www.textise.net/ Textise]) ([https://www.strategy-business.com/article/16402?gko=8af4f Original link] URL)

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Category:1945 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Irish economists

Category:Alumni of Lancaster University

Category:Alumni of Queen's University Belfast

Category:Complex systems scientists

Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society

Category:American operations researchers

Category:Scholars and academics from Belfast

Category:Santa Fe Institute people

Category:Stanford University faculty

Category:UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni

Category:University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni

Category:Economists from Northern Ireland