•  65
    Agent-Based Computational Economics: Overview and Brief History
    In Ragupathy Venkatachalam (ed.), Artificial Intelligence, Learning, and Computation in Economics and Finance, Springer. pp. 41-58. 2023.
    Scientists and engineers seek to understand how real-world systems work and could work better. Any modeling method devised for such purposes must simplify reality. Ideally, however, the modeling method should be flexible as well as logically rigorous; it should permit model simplifications to be appropriately tailored for the specific purpose at hand. Flexibility and logical rigor have been the two key goals motivating the development of Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), a completely ag…Read more
  •  1387
    Agent-based modeling: the right mathematics for the social sciences?
    with Paul L. Borrill
    In J. B. Davis & D. W. Hands (eds.), Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, Edward Elgar Publishers. pp. 228. 2011.
    This study provides a basic introduction to agent-based modeling (ABM) as a powerful blend of classical and constructive mathematics, with a primary focus on its applicability for social science research. The typical goals of ABM social science researchers are discussed along with the culture-dish nature of their computer experiments. The applicability of ABM for science more generally is also considered, with special attention to physics. Finally, two distinct types of ABM applications are sum…Read more
  •  804
    Modeling economic systems as locally-constructive sequential games
    Journal of Economic Methodology 24 (4): 1-26. 2017.
    Real-world economies are open-ended dynamic systems consisting of heterogeneous interacting participants. Human participants are decision-makers who strategically take into account the past actions and potential future actions of other participants. All participants are forced to be locally constructive, meaning their actions at any given time must be based on their local states; and participant actions at any given time affect future local states. Taken together, these essential properties impl…Read more
  •  654
    A conditional expected utility model for myopic decision makers
    Theory and Decision 12 (2): 185-206. 1980.
    An expected utility model of individual choice is formulated which allows the decision maker to specify his available actions in the form of controls (partial contingency plans) and to simultaneously choose goals and controls in end-mean pairs. It is shown that the Savage expected utility model, the Marschak- Radner team model, the Bayesian statistical decision model, and the standard optimal control model can be viewed as special cases of this goal-control expected utility model.
  •  3985
    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, strategic interaction, collective learning, and the possibility of multiple equilibria. Recent advances in analytical and computational tools are permitting new approaches to the quantitative study of these aspec…Read more
  •  402
    Games, goals, and bounded rationality
    Theory and Decision 17 (2): 149-175. 1984.
    A generalization of the standard n-person game is presented, with flexible information requirements suitable for players constrained by bounded rationality. Strategies (complete contingency plans) are replaced by "policies," i. e., end-mean pairs of candidate goals and "controls" (partial contingency plans). The existence of individual objective functions over the joint policy choice set is axiomatized in terms of primitive preference and probability orders. Conditions are given for the existenc…Read more
  •  545
    A dual approach to Bayesian inference and adaptive control
    Theory and Decision 14 (2): 177-194. 1982.
    Probability updating via Bayes' rule often entails extensive informational and computational requirements. In consequence, relatively few practical applications of Bayesian adaptive control techniques have been attempted. This paper discusses an alternative approach to adaptive control, Bayesian in spirit, which shifts attention from the updating of probability distributions via transitional probability assessments to the direct updating of the criterion function, itself, via transitional utilit…Read more
  •  531
    The explosive growth in computational power over the past several decades offers new tools and opportunities for economists. This handbook volume surveys recent research on Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), the computational study of economic processes modeled as open-ended dynamic systems of interacting agents. Empirical referents for “agents” in ACE models can range from individuals or social groups with learning capabilities to physical world features with no cognitive function. Topi…Read more