2 - Artificial Markets

Summary

Chapter 2 focuses on market interactions between artificial agents. First, it introduces two versions of the famous Sugarscape model, which is an excellent model for getting into artificial economics. In the first version, artificial agents are very simple and dedicated, in an environment in which there is only one resource called sugar, to collect and consume that resource to meet their metabolic needs. In the second version, the environment provides two resources, sugar and spice. And the artificial agents are more sophisticated, as they are not only dedicated to collecting and consuming such resources but also engage in market exchanges of them. Finally, it presents a static and a dynamic general equilibrium model of market economies, typical of mainstream economics, in a way that illustrates by contrast the assumptions of artificial economics versus the ones of mainstream economics when modeling markets.