Complex Agent-Based Models

This book offers a thorough introduction to the very promising complex agent-based approach to economics, in which agent-based models (ABMs) aim to represent economic systems as complex evolving systems, composed of heterogeneous agents of limited rationality who interact with each other, generating the emergent properties of the system . This approach represents a response to the limitations of the dominant theory in economics, which does not contemplate the possibility of a major crisis, and to the inability of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium theory to generate empirically falsifiable propositions. In the new perspective, the focus is on identification of the elements of instability rather than the triggering event. As the theory of complexity demonstrates, the interaction of heterogeneous agents generates non-linearity: this puts an end to the age of certainties. With ABMs, the methodology is "from the bottom up". The individual parameters and their distribution are estimated, then evaluated to verify whether aggregate regularities emerge in the whole. In short, there is micro, meso, and macro empirical validation. Moreover, it shows that concept of agrowth should replace the mantra of the growth. This book will enable students at undergraduate and Master's level to gain a firm grasp of this important emerging approach.