Generative Social Science

Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling

Joshua M. Epstein

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780691208749, 9780691125473
• eBook ISBN: 9781400842872
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

Agent-based computational modeling is changing the face of social science. In Generative Social Science, Joshua Epstein argues that this powerful, novel technique permits the social sciences to meet a fundamentally new standard of explanation, in which one "grows" the phenomenon of interest in an artificial society of interacting agents: heterogeneous, boundedly rational actors, represented as mathematical or software objects. After elaborating this notion of generative explanation in a pair of overarching foundational chapters, Epstein illustrates it with examples chosen from such far-flung fields as archaeology, civil conflict, the evolution of norms, epidemiology, retirement economics, spatial games, and organizational adaptation. In elegant chapter preludes, he explains how these widely diverse modeling studies support his sweeping case for generative explanation.

This book represents a powerful consolidation of Epstein's interdisciplinary research activities in the decade since the publication of his and Robert Axtell's landmark volume, Growing Artificial Societies. Beautifully illustrated, Generative Social Science includes a CD that contains animated movies of core model runs, and programs allowing users to easily change assumptions and explore models, making it an invaluable text for courses in modeling at all levels.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Prelude to Chapter 1: The Generativist Manifesto
• Chapter 1 : Agent-Based Computational Models and Generative Social Science
• Prelude to Chapter 2: Confession of a Wandering Bark
• Chapter 2: Remarks on the Foundations of Agent-Based Generative Social Science
• Prelude to Chapter 3: Equilibrium, Explanation, and Gauss's Tombstone
• Chapter 3: Non-Explanatory Equilibria: An Extremely Simple Game with (Mostly) Unattainable Fixed Points
• Appendix to Chapter 3: Large Effect of a Subtle Rule Change
• Prelude to Chapters 4-6: Generating Civilizations: The 1050 Project and the Artificial Anasazi Model
• Chapter 4: Understanding Anasazi Culture Change through Agent-Based Modeling
• Chapter 5: Population Growth and Collapse in a Multiagent Model of the Kayenta Anasazi in Long House Valley
• Chapter 6: The Evolution of Social Behavior in the Prehistoric American Southwest
• Prelude to Chapter 7: Generating Patterns in the Timing of Retirement
• Chapter 7: Coordination in Transient Social Networks: An Agent-Based Computational Model of the Timing of Retirement
• Prelude to Chapter 8: Generating Classes without Conquest
• Chapter 8: The Emergence of Classes in a Multi-Agent Bargaining Model
• Prelude to Chapter 9: Generating Zones of Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game
• Chapter 9: Zones of Cooperation in Demographic Prisoner's Dilemma
• Appendix to Chapter 9: Generating Norm Maps in the Demographic Coordination Game
• Prelude to Chapter 10: Generating Thoughtless Conformity to Norms
• Chapter 10: Learning to be Thoughtless: Social Norms and Individual Computation
• Prelude to Chapter 11: Generating Patterns of Spontaneous Civil Violence
• Chapter 11: Modeling Civil Violence: An Agent-Based Computational Approach
• Prelude to Chapter 12: Generating Epidemic Dynamics
• Chapter 12: Toward a Containment Strategy for Smallpox Bioterror: An Individual-Based Computational Approach
• Prelude to Chapter 13: Generating Optimal Organizations
• Chapter 13: Growing Adaptive Organizations: An Agent-Based Computational Approach
• Coda
• Index