Does anyone know if anyone has held an "economist Olympics?" via one of these
games (e.g. Sim City)? It seems like it might be a fun tool for evaluating
policy proposals. For example, suppose two economists disagreed about the
effects of a given policy proposal. To resolve the issue, they have their
students play a series of simulations (Ultima, Sim City), some of which
implement the proposal in the meta rules of the game, some of which do not. To
give it some teeth (a la Robin Hanson's idea futures proposal), prior to the
games, each economist must bet on their predicted outcome.
Can such games model reality well enough to give interesting results?
Would economists agree on the meta-rules enough to agree to participate?
