Andrei Silviu Dospinescu

Local Environment Analysis and Rules Inferring Procedure in an Agent Based Model - Applications in Economics

The use of agent-based modeling in economics is a step forward enabling a more realistic description of the complex interactions and behaviors occurring in the economic environment. Although it offers increased realism, especially in describing how local characteristics generate global patterns, it suffers from a simplistic approach to modeling local behaviors and rules. From this perspective the paper suggests possible solutions in two directions. First, the paper uses neural networks as an instrument for the agents to scan their local environment and infer possible behaviors. Second, the paper defines and applies an algorithm enabling the agents to understand a subset of rules that are not defined at the beginning of the application. The goal is to see how it is possible to generate new rules with structure and semantics. This would constitute “real” learning, namely defining new rules but not only quantitative variations of the initial rules.

Negotiation of Group Behaviors Based on Environmental Pressures - The Fundamental Qualitative Nature of the Environments

In our daily interactions we are integrated in different social and economic environments each with their own specificities and sustainability logics forcing us to adapt our behaviors and generating incompatible adaptive actions. Consequently our behaviors are a result of ample “negotiations” with the surrounding environments.The objective of this paper is to model a particular example of “negotiations”. We are going to focus on two key interactions: inter-group interactions and interactions with the natural environment through resources. The inter-group interactions are modeled based on the hypothesis that each group tries to impose its own key behavior. The interactions with the natural environment are modeled based on behavior mutations and crossovers between behaviors. The agents will select those modifications that allow them to adapt to the environment. There are two main findings of the paper.First of all, there are multiple behavior solutions that result from the interplay of different environmental pressures. From this perspective, local optimal solutions resulting from taxing externalities (in the case of the paper) can prove to be unsatisfying solutions when viewed from the perspective of the interplay with other adaptive pressures.Second of all, the environments (social, economic, natural) have a fundamental qualitative nature (Colceag 2011). This is reflected by the findings of the paper which illustrate that the adaptation to the pressures from the natural environment is influenced mainly by the crossover rate and not by the mutation rate.