This is an introduction to the papers in this special issue on policy simulations discussing a variety of simulation models. Simulation modelling has become a powerful tool to analyse hypothetical and actual policy changes. This issue contains analyses based on both macro- and micro-level data....

The aim of the present work is to scrutinise the economic use of phase transitions formalisms and to assess their relevance. The formal correspondence between the issue of micro-macro passage when agents are interacting and the physics problem of phase transition is first set out. The second...