This book deals with the economy as a complex interactive system. The emphasis is on the direct interaction between agents rather than on the indirect and autonomous interaction through the market mechanism. Contributions from economists and physicists emphasise the consequences for aggregate...

This short paper argues that rationally motivated coordination between agents is an important ingredient to understand the current economic crisis. We argue that changes in parameters that model the structure of a macro-economy or financial markets are not exogenous but arise as agents adopt...

The literature on learning in unknown environments emphasises reinforcing on actions which produce positive results. But, in some cases, success requires shifting from a currently successful actions to others. We examine, experimentally and theoretically in a very simple framework, how...

The literature on learning in unknown environments emphasises reinforcing on actions which produce positive results. But, in some cases, success requires shifting from a currently successful actions to others. We examine, experimentally and theoretically in a very simple framework, how...

Does land lease tenure insecurity cause decreased productivity and investment in the sugar industry? To answer this question, the present study examined the impact of weak formal tenure lease arrangements on tenantsEinvestment and the productivity of sugarcane in Ba province, Fiji. After...

This paper develops a simple model that provides a unified explanation of the increased skewness of wage income distribution based on differences in flexibility of skills--modeled as differences in the setup costs required to combine/perform a given number of tasks. Our numerical experiments in...