Economics and Business Review

In the light of Schumpeter’s pioneering vision of economic evolution the innovations
and innovative entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in the economic development.
However, imitations and producers-imitators are essential in diffusing and
adapting innovations into the economic exchange processes. In this context the aim of
the paper is to model and analyse some properties of imitative mechanisms appearing
within the economic evolution.
Innovative and imitative mechanisms defined in Hurwicz’s conceptual apparatus
are analysed in the economy determined by the use of topological tools usually applied
in the general equilibrium theory. As a result it is shown that, in the economy under
study, imitative mechanisms are the reasons for and the consequences of innovative
mechanisms as well as that the innovative and imitative processes can coexist in the
framework of the same innovative mechanism. Moreover it is proven that under some
assumptions equilibrium in the economic system analysed can be obtained as a consequence
of either of an innovative or an imitative mechanism.