Preliminary Agent-Based Model In Place

I have made some progress on my agent-based modelling project (in between CFL playoff games). It is now possible to interact with the simulation, making this the minimum viable space trading game. My objective was to get the economy running in a somewhat sensible fashion, so that it is possible to examine how any particular agent reacts to a coherent economy state, and thus I am free to refine behaviour.

(I have a Patreon to support my open source projects, of which this is the one that is currently getting the most development time. I also have my stock-flow consistent modelling module, as well as my research platform that I use to generate the charts for my blog. All use Python, although I do my plots in R.)

Pondering The Economic Significance Of Aggregated Price Indices

Blair Fix wrote an interesting article “The Truth About Inflation.” There is a lot of material in there, which overlaps some of my thinking that would go into a section of my inflation primer. One key observation is that variance in price changes for individual items swamps the change in the aggregate CPI. I ran into a comment that “everybody knows” about variance in CPI components, but this points to the problem that conventional approaches to macro have a theoretical blind spot — what if aggregate CPI is not economically meaningful because we are literally and figuratively adding up apples and oranges?

Doing Agent-Based Modelling...

I am currently working on adding functionality to my Python agent-based model framework, so no other article from me this week.

I set up a Patreon to support my Python projects, and the agent-based model is the current focus. I wrote a few small pieces this week discussing recent work: here and here.

Agent-Based Model Update

I have advanced my agent-based model project, and I just wanted to comment on what I am hoping to do with the initial model. As I have noted previously, it is a variant of the Monetary Monopoly Model.

Current State

This model has a single traded commodity (food). There are multiple “locations” within the model (currently two), with a single fiat currency. (The locations are currently green circles on a black background, and with sufficient imagination, are planets.)

Towards A MVP ABM

I have been catching up on some of my programming backlog, and I think I am in position to aim for a minimum viable product (MVP) version of my Python agent-based model (ABM) project. The figure above shows the visible progress made so far — which is not not at first glance an economic simulation. (In case you are wondering, the green balls are planets, and the blue box is supposed to be a spaceship flying between them. Or the balls could be island cities in an ocean at night, and the blue box is a container ship. Whatever.)

The challenge I face with this project is that every single aspect can explode in complexity, and so I can be paralysed by the need to deal with every potential quirk in the simulation. For this reason, I need to force myself to aim at a MVP, and worry about the cut corners later.

Status Update On My Agent-Based Model Dabbling

I have had a bit more time to work on my Python agent-based model project. As I discussed earlier, I am migrating the discussion of my open source projects to a new Patreon. As I have noted repeatedly, a consulting project has slowed me down, so progress on that front has been slow. I just want to give a bit of a summary of how things are going, from the perspective of someone who is interested in the modelling, but not the coding bits.

Book Review: Agent-Based Models In Economics: A Toolkit

The book Agent-Based Models in Economics: A Toolkit (Amazon affiliate link) is a collection of articles edited by by Domenico Delli Gatti, Giorgio Fagiolo, Mauro Gallegati, Matteo Richiardi, and Alberto Russo. (I will refer to them as "the editors" in this article...) I picked up this book as it appears aimed at my new interest in agent-based models. 

Given the diversity of the articles within the text, I will not attempt to make this an academic book review, instead being closer to a book review on an online book store: who would be interested in buying this book? The book is somewhat more "literary" in style than I hoped for, but it might be of interest for those who enjoy economic theory controversies.