Journal on Policy and Complex Systems - Fall 2015 , Volume 2 , Number 2
Politics , Economics , and Financial Markets
Welcome to the fourth issue of the Journal of Policy and Complex Systems .
This issue focuses on politics , economics , and financial markets .
The issue begins with the paper by Zining Yang which “ combines system dynamics and agent-based modeling with game theory to formalize a multilevel simulation framework to understand the relationship between politics , economics , and demographic changes over time .” This work explains how microlevel human actions and interactions can drive macrolevel dynamics , while , at the same time , these macro structures provide “ a political , social , and economic environment that constrains or incentivizes microlevel human behaviors .”
Krejci , Domeich , and Stone explain how they simulated development of intermediated regional food supply networks that connect regional food producers and consumers . They demonstrate how “ the intermediary , known as a regional food hub , serves as an aggregation point for products and information and may also act as a filter to ensure that the requirements of both producers and consumers are consistently met .” The agent-based model was used to “ test a variety of sourcing policies that could be implemented by the food hub manager to improve operations . Results indicate that policies that protect producers from competition may have negative consequences for consumer satisfaction .”
Su and Hadzikadic continue their exploration of stock markets by evaluating the role of trust metrics and learning in simulations of behavior of human investors . “ A trust metric is an indication of the degree to which one social actor trusts another , while aggressiveness in learning determines the degree to which one trader decides to mimic another . This paper introduces an agent-based model for finding the optimal level of aggressiveness in learning and the optimal degree of trust in order to optimize the stock trading returns .”
Sakahira and Terano propose “ an agent-based simulation ( ABS ) to generate anthropological and archaeological hypotheses .” They focus on “ the diffusion process of the agriculture and pottery in the Gusuku period ( 11 th – 14 th centuries ) in Okinawa , Japan .” They propose plausible but falsifiable hypotheses : ( 1 ) agriculture spread rapidly among native people and was , in the early stages , performed mainly by native people ; and ( 2 ) the immigrant-style pottery was mostly used by immigrants and was not widely diffused among native people .” These hypotheses will be verified by the future discovery of anthropological and archaeological evidence .
Unlike the previous four papers that deal with concrete examples , Russ Abbott seeks to shine additional light on the concept of emergence , a critical issue for all complex systems , including the four described in the four papers above . “ Since emergence typically involves an entity whose components are organized in
1 doi : 10.18278 / jpcs . 2.2.1