Abstract
In order to survive, self-serving agents in various complex adaptive systems (CASs) must compete against others for sharing limited resources with biased or unbiased distribution by conducting strategic behaviors. This competition can globally result in the balance of resource allocation. As a result, most of the agents (say, species) can survive well. However, it is a common belief that the formation of a herd in a CAS will cause excess volatility, which can ruin the balance of resource allocation in the CAS. Here this belief is challenged with the results obtained from a modeled resource-allocation system. Based on this system, we design and conduct a series of computer-aided controlled human experiments, including herd behavior. We also perform agent-based simulations and theoretical analyses, in order to confirm the experimental observations and reveal the underlying mechanism. We report that, as long as the ratio of the two resources for allocation is biased enough, the formation of a typically sized herd can help the system to reach the balanced state. This resource ratio also serves as the critical point for a class of phase transition identified herein, which can be used to discover the role change of herd behavior, from a ruinous one to a helpful one. This chapter is also of value to some fields, ranging from management and social science, to ecology and evolution, and to physics.
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Notes
- 1.
Here the situation is not the history of winning rooms. Broadly speaking, it can be explained as a mixture of endogenous and exogenous system information. Results obtained with the real history bit strings have no essential difference with the current study, though the use of random information makes the theoretical analysis easier.
- 2.
This corresponds to the case of primary imitators. In fact, in the real system, there might exist multilevel imitations where some imitators can copy other imitators’ behavior. Similar conclusions could be achieved.
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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Huang, JP. (2015). Herd Behavior: Beyond the Known Ruinous Role. In: Experimental Econophysics. New Economic Windows. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44234-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44234-0_5
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Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44233-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44234-0
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