Agent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling

This is the era of Big Data and computational social science. It is an era that requires tools which can do more than visualise data but also model the complex relation between data and huma

Agent-based simulation has become increasingly popular as a modeling approach in the social sciences because it enables researchers to build models where individual entities and their interactions are

Social interactions are rich, complex, and dynamic. One way to understand these is to model interactions that fascinate us. Some of the more realistic and powerful models are computer simulations. Simple, elegant and powerful, tools are available in user-friendly free software to help you design, build and run your own models of social interactions that intrigue you, and do this on the most basic laptop computer. Focusing on a well-known model of housing segregation, this Element is about how to unleash that power, setting out the fundamentals of what is now known as 'agent based modeling'.

Building on the Cambridge Element Agent Based Models of Social Life: Fundamentals (Cambridge, 2020), we move on to the next level. We do this by building agent based models of polarization and ethnocentrism. In the process, we develop: stochastic models, which add a crucial element of uncertainty to human interaction; models of human interactions structured by social networks; and 'evolutionary' models in which agents using more effective decision rules are more likely to survive and prosper than others. The aim is to leave readers with an effective toolkit for building, running and analyzing agent based modes of social interaction.

Strategic management is a system of continual disequilibrium, with firms in a continual struggle for competitive advantage and relative fitness. Models that are dynamic in nature are required if we are to really understand the complex notion of sustainable competitive advantage. New tools are required to tackle challenges of how firms should compete in environments characterized by both exogeneous shocks and intense endogenous competition. Agent-based modelling of firms' strategies offers an alternative analytical approach, where individual firm or component parts of a firm are modelled, each with their own strategy. Where traditional models can assume homogeneity of actors, agent-based models simulate each firm individually. This allows experimentation of strategic moves, which is particularly important where reactions to strategic moves are non-trivial. This Element introduces agent-based models and their use within management, reviews the influential NK suite of models, and offers a

The essential textbook on agent-based modeling—now fully updated and expandedAgent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling has become the standard textbook on the subject for classroom use and self-instru

The essential textbook on agent-based modeling—now fully updated and expandedAgent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling has become the standard textbook on the subject for classroom use and self-instru