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Explaining Social and Economic Phenomena by Models with Low or Zero Cognition Agents

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Book cover Complexity Hints for Economic Policy

Part of the book series: New Economic Windows ((NEW))

Abstract

We set up agent based models in which agents have low or zero cognitive ability. We examine two quite diverse socio-economic phenomena, namely the distribution of the cumulative size of economic recessions in the United States and the distribution of the number of crimes carried out by individuals. We show that the key macro-phenomena of the two systems can be shown to emerge from the behaviour of these agents. In other words, both the distribution of economic recessions and the distribution of the number of crimes can be accounted for by models in which agents have low or zero cognitive ability.

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Ormerod, P., Trabatti, M., Glass, K., Colbaugh, R. (2007). Explaining Social and Economic Phenomena by Models with Low or Zero Cognition Agents. In: Complexity Hints for Economic Policy. New Economic Windows. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-0534-1_10

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