Various approaches used in Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) to model endogenously determined interactions between agents are discussed. This concerns models in which agents not only (learn how to) play some (market or other) game, but also (learn to) decide with whom to do that (or not).

Consumer advocates won a victory with the passage of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. (Credit Card Act). The Credit Card Act bans certain pricing practices that were confusing to credit card users. Ironically, the seeds of this legislative victory may...

The U.S. Bankruptcy code changed dramatically with the passage of The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act Of 2005. This act increased the costs and decreased the benefits of bankruptcy to consumers. Supporters of the law claimed that it would benefit consumers as well as...

The economic impact of the compulsory grading legislation imposed by the EC is analysed. It is shown that the system imposed certain and immediate costs on producers and consumers, while any possible benefits were uncertain and distant. The system imposed bore no relation to the realities of the...

Consumers choosing a cellular calling plan typically have many options to choose from. While the number of firms may be small, each offers a large number of calling plans, each one dealing with many options for each of the different types of services included in the contract (voice...

Ranking have become increasingly popular on markets for study programs, restaurants, wines, cars, etc. This paper analyses the welfare implication of such rankings. Consumers have to make a choice between two goods of unknown quality with exogenous presence or absence of an informative ranking....

Nuclear meltdown in Japan and civil society strife across the Middle East highlight the degree to which resilience is core to international peace and security. This article considers the means by which communities can become increasingly resilient through shared best practices across a range of...

Various approaches used in Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) to model endogenously determined interactions between agents are discussed. This concerns models in which agents not only (learn how to) play some (market or other) game, but also (learn to) decide with whom to do that (or not).

The conventional wisdom in economic theory holds that switching costs make markets less competitive. This paper challenges this claim. We find that steady-state equilibrium prices may fall as switching costs are introduced into a simple model of dynamic price competition that allows for...