The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of

318 F. Beckenbach, R. Briegel
consideration of the microeconomic foundation for the driving forces of economic
processes. To assume a representative optimizing agency is not sufficient in this
context because neither behavioral constraints (in terms of information processing
and knowledge acquisition) nor non-linear interaction effects between economic
actors can be taken into account by making this assumption. A realistic view on the
microeconomic background of observable economic aggregates is not only
important for explaining the (aggregate) economic output itself, it is also essential
for assessing the possibilities and constraints for political regulation.
The problem at stake here can be illustrated by referring to the endeavor to model the
climate change. Obviously there is a dichotomy between the model compartments
related to the natural and ecological components of the climate change on one side and
the model compartment portraying the economic dynamics on the other side. Whereas
the former is usually conceptualized as a complex adaptive system the latter is framed as
a more or less straight-forward optimization machine (e.g. IPCC 2007; Rayner and
Malone 1998; Janssen 1998; McGuffie and Henderson-Sellers 1997; Walker and
Steffen 1996; Nordhaus1992). Hence, there is a complexity gap between these two
model compartments raising the question of their general compatibility. Furthermore
concepts of aggregated growth play an essential role in the architecture of the
economic modeling compartment. Due to the requirement of prognosis computable
general equilibrium models are the most preferred model designs in this domain of
economic research (e.g. Nordhaus and Bojer 2000).Ameaningfulaccesstoevaluating
political regulation cannot be given in such a context because there is no possibility to
relate political measures to the action of individuals, organizations or groups of both. 1
We are suggesting to fill this gap of micro-foundation in economic analysis by
using a multi-agent framework. In such a framework there is no necessity to confine
the analysis to economic aggregates and to a corresponding stylized microfoundation.
Rather different types of agents as well as their interaction can be
conceptualized as the driving forces for the (aggregate) economic dynamics without
missing the property of computability. At the same time by referring to agents (and
their interactions) the addressees of political regulation are explicitly taken into
account. Hence, assessing political options from an agent-based perspective is
possible in such a framework.
In what follows the main focus is on methodological issues. It will be shown how
aggregate economic dynamics can be (re-)constructed by using such a multi-agent
framework. Therefore we will not deal with the problem of empirical calibration of
multi-agent models. 2 For demonstrating the importance of such an agent-based
approach we will take the example of innovation induced market dynamics. Looking
at modern theories of growth there seems to be a consensus that innovation is of
1 This problem is often circumvented by postulating targets (e.g. in terms of reducing emissions) without
showing by means of which transitions agents can meet these targets and how these transitions can be
triggered. If this would be specified the uncertainty with regard to emission scenarios could be reduced (cf.
IPCC 2007; Pielke et al. 2008).
2 Depending on data availability there are generally two different ways to calibrate the initial values of the
state variables and the parameters of the model: either indirectly by postulating the reproduction of given
data time series or directly by doing behavioral observations (cf. Beckenbach et al. 2009; Beckenbach and
Daskalakis 2008; Windrum et al. 2007; Edmonds 2001).