MinSim

This page will detail work done in Agent-Based simulation of a minimal economy (MinSim) at Princeton University and links to research being done elsewhere.

This page will be under constant construction during the Fall 2008-2009 term. Please come back soon for updates.

Research

• Work by Steiglitz
• Work by Tesfatsion

Links to Chris Chan's papers on MinSim:

• Part One
• Part Two

Papers on Economic Agent-Based simulation

Using MinSim

Meeting Agendas/Tasks for Next Meeting

09/29/08 For next week:

• Look up information on Aspen project/failure(?) (starting point: Aspen)
• Look at Chris's software and start trying to see if real-life economic problems are reproduced in the simulation
• Examples:
  • Tariffs, international trade
  • Specialization of labor, Adam Smith
  • Maximizing revenue of entrepreneurs vs total country revenue
  • Inflation, Stagflation, Phillips curve
  • Compare the stability of a central banking system with that of the gold standard
  • Evaluate the "bailout"
• Post summaries of articles up on the wiki
  • Sign up for the wiki
  • Edit the section "Papers on economic Agent-Based simulation"

Extension:

• Look at the household model and formulate ways to improve Chris's model

10/06/08

• Went over code
• Why don't prices stabilize on its own?
• Broad objectives?
• Figure out where supply/demand is in the code
• use this to see if the simulation satisfies the properties of supply/demand
• Play with parameters- More stability with more workers, etc? (keep in mind that this slows down the program)
• Brainstorm things we can look at in the future
• Interest rates?
• Meet separately Wednesday (4:30, Friend library) to look over code
• Start looking into old intro micro/macro books

Meeting Recap 10/13/08 - Tasks

• Baseline economy
• Arbitragers
• External Influence
  • SEC Regulation
  • Government Regulation
  • Taxes
  • Media
  • Rumors
• Factors going into external influence
  • Banking
    • Central banks
    • Gold standard
  • Technical vs. Fundamental analysis
    • Trend following
  • Machine learning
    • Partial/full information for agent?
    • Emotional agents?
    • Agents don’t have to be fully rational
    • How good should the machine learning be to reflect the world?
  • International Trade

Meeting Recap 10/20/08 - Tasks

• eric- lifecycles of individual
• tony- info flow, communication, mkt for information
• stephanie- financial intruments? taxes, 401ks?
  • Current banking system, politician's plans- will it work? Moratorium on mortgages. Free market vs. regulation of government
  • Controversy b/w deregulation and regulation, party platforms
• CVS setup

Meeting 11/3/08

• Sheri wants to look at Trend following, arbitrageurs
• Tony wants to look at media- flow of information in economy where default state is that they only know local information
• To simulate: make a theory, get mathematical results, then simulate to verify/revoke results
• Market failure - used to justify infusion of capital, govt regulation (build model for credit default swaps - miscalculation of risk- because of lack of government regulation?)
• IIASA: publications that conduct interdisciplinary studies on economy and other global forces: IIASA