Economies are complicated systems encompassing micro behaviors, interaction patterns, and global regularities. Whether partial or general in scope, studies of economic systems must consider how to handle difficult real-world aspects such as asymmetric information, imperfect competition,...

Computer technology presents economists with new tools, but also raises novel methodological issues. This essay discusses the challenges faced by computational researchers, and proposes some solutions.

Using the author's own experiences, this chapter shows how agent-based modeling (ABM) can address research questions common to many disciplines, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, provide a useful multidisciplinary tool when the math is intractable, and reveal unity across disciplines....

This chapter presents an overview of the existing learning models in the economic literature. Furthermore, it discusses the choice of models that should be used under various circumstances and how adequate learning models can be chosen in simulation approaches. It gives advice for using the many...

Computer automation has the potential, just starting to be realized, of transforming the design and operation of markets, and the behaviors of agents trading in them. We discuss the possibilities for automating markets, presenting a broad conceptual framework covering resource allocation as well...

This chapter treats a variety of epistemological issues surrounding generative explanation in the social sciences, and discusses the role of agent-based computational models in generative social science.

The agent-based approach views an organization as a collection of agents, interacting with one another in their pursuit of assigned tasks. The performance of an organization in this framework is determined by the formal and informal structures of interactions among agents, which define the lines...

A pencil-and-paper experiment with spacial segregation leads to some general phenomena of spatial organization.

This chapter discusses the potential of the agent-based computational economics approach for the analysis of processes of innovation and technological change. It is argued that, on the one hand, several genuine properties of innovation processes make the possibilities offered by agent-based...

Economic growth depends not only on how people make decisions but also upon how their decisions are coordinated. Because of this, aggregate outcomes can diverge from individual intentions. I illustrate this with reference to the modern literature on economic growth, and also with reference to an...