Syllabus of Readings (1996-2006)

Last Updated: 15 April 2017

Site maintained by:

Leigh Tesfatsion

Department of Economics

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa 50011-1070

https://faculty.sites.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/archive/tesfatsi/

tesfatsi AT iastate.edu

Agent-Based Computational Economics (ACE) Website

Important Note:

This website could be of some historic interest. Originally established in 1996, it highlights pioneering CAS/AL/ABM/ACE-related books and research articles through approximately 2006. At this point, given the increasing activity in these areas, it became too unwieldly to maintain a site with this breadth of coverage. Attention was subsequently focused more narrowly on materials of interest to ABM/ACE researchers; and these materials were posted directly to the many specialized sites linked at the ACE Website.

Acknowledgements:

At the time of its initiation (1996), this site was based in part on the artificial life syllabi prepared by Emanuel Gruengard (Bar-Ilan University), John Koza (Stanford University), and Martin Zwick (Portland State University), and on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) manual maintained by Joerg Heitkoetter of the University of Dortmund for the newsgroup comp.ai.genetic.

Overview:

A system is typically defined to be a complex system if it exhibits the following two properties (see, e.g., Gary Flake, The Computational Beauty of Nature, MIT Press, 1998):

• The system is composed of interacting units;

• The system exhibits emergent properties, that is, properties arising from the interactions of the units that are not properties of the individual units themselves.

Agreement on the definition of a complex adaptive system (CAS) has proved to be more difficult to achieve. The range of possible definitions offered by commentators includes the following three nested characterizations:

Definition 1:

A CAS is a complex system that includes reactive units, i.e., units capable of exhibiting systematically different attributes in reaction to changed environmental conditions.

Definition 2:

A CAS is a complex system that includes goal-directed units, i.e., units that are reactive and that direct at least some of their reactions towards the achievement of built-in (or evolved) goals.

Definition 3:

A CAS is a complex system that includes planner units, i.e., units that are goal-directed and that attempt to exert some degree of control over their environment to facilitate achievement of these goals.

Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) is a culture-dish approach to the study of economic systems viewed as complex adaptive systems in the sense of Definition 1, at a minimum, and often in the stronger sense of Definition 2 or Definition 3. As in a culture-dish laboratory experiment, the ACE modeler starts by computationally constructing an economic world comprising multiple interacting agents (units). The modeler then steps back to observe the development of the world over time.

Readings by Topic Area:

Previewing Information:

Some of the materials available for downloading are in postscript (ps) or in portable document format (pdf); all others are html documents. Adobe Acrobat Reader, downloadable as freeware, can be used to preview and print ps and pdf files on personal computers.

1. Introductory Overviews

2. Evolutionary Computation
   1. Introductory Readings
   2. Genetic Algorithms and Evolving Rule sets
   3. Genetic Programming
   4. Evolutionary Programming and Evolution Strategies
   5. Artificial Neural Networks
   6. Other Readings of Interest

3. Robotics

4. Biological Evolution
   1. Key Issues in Biological Evolution
   2. Game Theory Approaches to Biological Evolution

5. Social Evolution
   1. Adaptation, Learning, and Innovation
   2. Game Theory Approaches to Social Evolution

6. Economic and Social Network Formation

7. Classic Critiques

8. Software and Software Development

9. Commercial Development and Application

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