Sorry for the (only partly) flippant answer: Simcity!
On 12/04/2009, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: > Does anyone know of good examples of generic agent-based market economies? > I'm thinking of something as simple as this. > > A population consists of agents each of which has certain continuing needs > (such as food, clothing, shelter, Internet access, etc.) to survive. As a > starting point, let's assume that each agent needs one unit of each of N > resources every time period. Let's also assume that each agent is > specialized and is capable of creating enough of one of the needed resources > to satisfy the needs of N agents. (The fact that I used the same N in both > places was intentional.) To keep it simple let's assume that these acts of > creation occur from scratch, i.e., that the creator doesn't need raw > materials, that all that's necessary for an agent to create a needed > resource is that the agent be alive. The agents presumably develop a barter > economy, trading the resources they create for the resources they need to > stay alive. Perhaps markets develop, and perhaps money develops. At this > point the economy should be fairly stable. Each agent creates enough stuff > so that s/he can trade it for what s/he needs to stay live. > > Perhaps some of the agents learn how to be more efficient in creating their > resource and begin to accumulate "wealth" in some form. Perhaps the agents > have discretionary desires, which they fill if they have enough resources > left over after meeting their basic needs. Perhaps there are communal > services that are paid for by taxes or memberships. This could become > increasingly elaborate. > > It seems to me that models of this sort must have been developed -- perhaps > many times. Does anyone know of any references to this sort of work? > > Thanks. > > -- Russ Abbott > _____________________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/ > -- Saul Caganoff Enterprise IT Architect LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scaganoff ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
