PLEASE NOTE (11 January 2002): This Econ 308x syllabus
(Agent-Based Computational Economics) has been moved to a new site at
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ308x/tesfatsion/syl308x.htm.
All future updates to this syllabus will only be made at this new
site.
Preliminary Syllabus for Econ 308x
Agent-Based Computational Economics (ACE)
- Course Offering: Spring 2002
- Meeting Time and Place: TR 12:40-2, Heady 160
- Last Updated:10 January 2002
- Instructor:
-
Leigh Tesfatsion
- Professor of Economics and Mathematics
- Department of Economics
- Iowa State University
- Ames, Iowa 50011-1070
- http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/
tesfatsi@iastate.edu
- Office Hours:
- Heady 375, TR 2:10-3:40 and by appointment
-
Home Page for Econ 308x
-
ACE Website
Required Textbooks (Bookstore):
- David F. Batten, Discovering Artificial Economics: How Agents Learn
and Economies Evolve, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2000, ISBN:
0-8133-9770-7.
-
Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Back
Together Again, MIT Press, Paperback Edition, 1998, ISBN: 0-262-53156-9.
Recommended Text (for Students Interested in Doing Some Original
Programming as Part of Their Class Project):
- Matt Weisfeld, The Object-Oriented Thought Process, SAMS
Publishing (Division of Macmillan), Indianapolis, Indiana, 2000, ISBN:
0-672-31853-9 (paperback).
- This book is designed to help newcomers to object-oriented
programming (OOP) to learn guidelines for solid class design, to master the
major concepts of inheritance, composition, interfaces, and abstract classes,
and to create components to use in building more sophisticated systems. The
author motivates and illustrates his points by taking readers step by step
through a real-world application -- a simple e-commerce application framework
using Java interfaces and abstract classes.
Course Activities:
- Instructor and student-moderated discussions of assigned readings and
materials
- Survey and demonstrations of available computational tools
suitable for ACE applications
- Hands-on experience using computational laboratories to conduct ACE
experiments
- In-class presentations of student projects
Topic Coverage:
I. Introduction to Agent-Based Computational Economics
Required Readings:
- ** L. Tesfatsion, "Agent-Based Computational Economics: Growing
Economies From the Bottom Up"
(pdf,216K),
Economics Working Paper No. 1, January 2002, to appear in
Artificial Life, Volume 8, No. 1, 2002. HAND-OUT
- ** A. Clark (text), "Introduction" (pp. 1-9)
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 1: "Chance and Necessity" (pp. 1-43)
Other source materials
II. Learning and the Embodied Mind
Required Readings:
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 2: "On the Road to Know-Ware" (pp. 45-79)
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 1: "Autonomous Agents: Walking on the
Moon" (pp. 11-33)
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 2: "The Situated Infant" (pp. 35-51)
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 3: "Mind and World: The Plastic Frontier"
(pp. 55-69)
Other source materials
III. Formation of Economic Networks
Required Readings:
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 4: "Collective Wisdom, Slime-Mold Style"
(pp. 71-84)
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 3: "Sheep, Explorers, and Phase
Transitions" (pp. 81-115)
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 4: "The Ancient Art of Learning by
Circulating" (pp. 117-138)
Other source materials
IV. Bottom-Up Modeling of Market Processes
Required Readings:
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 5: "Evolving Robots" (pp. 87-102)
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 9: "Minds and Markets" (pp. 179-192)
- ** A. Clark (text), Chapter 10: "Language, The Ultimate Artifact" (pp. 193-218)
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 7: "Coevolving Markets" (pp. 209-245)
- ** D. Batten (text), Chapter 8: "Artificial Economics" (pp. 247-268)
- ** M. Weisfeld, The Object-Oriented Thought Process, SAMS,
Chapter 1: "Introduction to Object-Oriented Concepts" (pp. 8-31),
HAND-OUT
Selected Illustrations (e.g.,
financial,
ag/natural resources,
labor,
electricity,
auctions,...)
Other source materials (edited volumes of readings)
V. Evolution of Market Protocols and Social Norms
Required readings (to be determined)
Other source materials
VI. Network, Path-Dependence, and Lock-In Effects in Economic
Systems
Required readings (to be determined)
Other source materials
VII. ACE Laboratories for Design and Testing of Market Protocols
and Agents
Required readings (to be determined)
Other source materials
VIII. Parallel Experiments with Real and Computational Economic
Agents
Required readings (to be determined)
Other source materials
Possible Student Project Topic Areas:
Copyright © 2002 Leigh Tesfatsion. All Rights Reserved.