During the last thirty years education researchers have developed models for judging the comparative performance of schools, in studies of what has become known as “differential school effectivenessâ€. A great deal of empirical research has been carried out to understand why differences...

This paper presents a model to generate dynamic patterns of maritime piracy. Model details, outputs and calibration are illustrated. The model presented here is a tool to estimate the number of pirates and their area of action. The Gulf of Aden is considered as a case study, and data on pirate...

This paper explores how structural properties of small firms’ networks emerge from the ways firms exchange knowledge. In particular we are interested in analysing if and under which conditions the need for knowledge exchange within a set of co-located small firms is able to generate a more or...

Regional economic development has experienced considerable dynamism over recent years. Perhaps the most notable cases were the rise of China and India to emergent country status by the turn of the millennium. With time now for hindsight, this book identifies some of the key forces behind these...

An agent-based simulation model representing a theory of the dynamic processes involved in innovation in modern knowledge-based industries is described. The agent-based approach allows the representation of heterogeneous agents that have individual and varying stocks of knowledge. The simulation...

When designing an agent-based simulation, an important question to answer is how to model the decision making processes of the agents in the system. A large number of agent decision making models can be found in the literature, each inspired by different aims and research questions. In this...

According to the organizational learning literature, the greatest competitive advantage a firm has is its ability to learn. In this paper, a framework for modeling learning competence in firms is presented to improve the understanding of managing innovation. Firms with different knowledge stocks...

This paper analyses, models mathematically, and compares national voting behaviours across seven democratic countries that have a long term election history, focusing on re-election rates, leaders’ reputation with voters and the importance of friends’ and family influence. Based on the data,...

Christopher Watts and Nigel Gilbert explore the generation, diffusion and impact of innovations, which can now be studied using computer simulations.