This paper discusses how the results of simulation models can be made more reliable and the method of simulating therefore more widely applicable. We suggested to calibrate simulation models empirically and developed a methodology based on Critical Realism in order to so. We suggested combining...

This paper studies the frequency of observing a certain number of firms or employees in a region for a given industry. Various predictions for these frequencies are deduced from theoretical considerations. Then, the empirical distributions of 198 industries in Germany are analysed. It is found...

In minority games, players in a group must decide at each round which of two available options to choose, knowing that only subjects who picked the minority option obtain a positive reward. Previous experiments on the minority and similar congestion games have shown that players interacting...

We demonstrate that one should not expect convergence of the proposals to the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium offer in standard ultimatum games. First, imposing strict experimental control of the behavior of the receiving players and focusing on the behavior of the proposers, we show...

This paper analyzes how the qualitative change in human labor occurs in mutual dependence with the advancement of the epistemic base of technology. Historically, a recurrent pattern can be identified: humans learned to successively transfer labor qualities to machines. The subsequent release of...

We test the industry life cycle hypothesis for 205 industries in West Germany between 1976 and 2009. In particular we analyse whether population indicators follow a cyclical path. Using a novel non-linear regression approach to identify life cycles we find that the number of establishments,...

A stochastic model of the evolution of the firm population in a region and industry is developed. This model is used to make predictions about the expected probability distribution of the firm number in regions and their dynamics. Data on the spatial distribution of firms in Germany is used to...