This project combines game theory and genetic algorithms in a simulation model for evolutionary learning and strategic behavior. It is often observed in the real world that strategic scenarios change over time, and deciding agents need to adapt to new information and environmental structures. Yet, game theory models often focus on static games, even for dynamic and temporal analyses. This simulation model introduces a heuristic procedure that enables these changes in strategic scenarios with Genetic Algorithms. Using normalized 2x2 strategic-form games as input, computational agents can interact and make decisions using three pre-defined decision rules: Nash Equilibrium, Hurwicz Rule, and Random. The games then are allowed to change over time as a function of the agent’s behavior through crossover and mutation. As a result, strategic behavior can be modeled in several simulated scenarios, and their impacts and outcomes can be analyzed, potentially transforming conflictual situations into harmony.

Reducing packaging waste is a critical challenge that requires organizations to collaborate within circular ecosystems, considering social, economic, and technical variables like decision-making behavior, material prices, and available technologies. Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) offers a valuable methodology for understanding these complex dynamics. In our research, we have developed an ABM to explore circular ecosystems’ potential in reducing packaging waste, using a case study of the Dutch food packaging ecosystem. The model incorporates three types of agents—beverage producers, packaging producers, and waste treaters—who can form closed-loop recycling systems.

Beverage Producer Agents: These agents represent the beverage company divided into five types based on packaging formats: cans, PET bottles, glass bottles, cartons, and bag-in-boxes. Each producer has specific packaging demands based on product volume, type, weight, and reuse potential. They select packaging suppliers annually, guided by deterministic decision styles: bargaining (seeking the lowest price) or problem-solving (prioritizing high recycled content).

Packaging Producer Agents: These agents are responsible for creating packaging using either recycled or virgin materials. The model assumes a mix of monopolistic and competitive market situations, with agents calculating annual material needs. Decision styles influence their choices: bargaining agents compare recycled and virgin material costs, while problem-solving agents prioritize maximum recycled content. They calculate recycled content in packaging and set prices accordingly, ensuring all produced packaging is sold within or outside the model.

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This NetLogo model simulates the spread of climate change beliefs within a population of individuals. Each believer has an initial belief level, which changes over time due to interactions with other individuals and exposure to media. The aim of the model is to identify possible methods for reducing climate change denial.

MarPEM is an agent-based model that can be used to study the effects of policy instruments on the transition away from HFO.

The model implements a model that reflects features of a rural hill village in Nepal. Key features of the model include water storage, social capital and migration of household members who then send remittances back to the village.

The model is an experimental ground to study the impact of network structure on diffusion. It allows to construct a social network that already has some measurable level of homophily, and simulate a diffusion process over this social network.

This ABM simulates opinions on a topic (originally contested infrastructures) through the interactions between paired agents and based on the sociopsychological assumptions of social judgment theory (SJT; Sherif & Hovland, 1961).

PopComp by Andre Costopoulos 2020
andre.costopoulos@ualberta.ca
Licence: DWYWWI (Do whatever you want with it)

I use Netlogo to build a simple environmental change and population expansion and diffusion model. Patches have a carrying capacity and can host two kinds of populations (APop and BPop). Each time step, the carrying capacity of each patch has a given probability of increasing or decreasing up to a maximum proportion.

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This model simulations social and childcare provision in the UK. Agents within simulated households can decide to provide for informal care, or pay for private care, for their loved ones after they have provided for childcare needs. Agents base these decisions on factors including their own health, employment status, financial resources, relationship to the individual in need and geographical location. This model extends our previous simulations of social care by simulating the impact of childcare demand on social care availability within households, which is known to be a significant constraint on informal care provision.

Results show that our model replicates realistic patterns of social and child care provision, suggesting that this framework can be a valuable aid to policy-making in this area.

In macroeconomics, an emerging discussion of alternative monetary systems addresses the dimensions of systemic risk in advanced financial systems. Monetary regime changes with the aim of achieving a more sustainable financial system have already been discussed in several European parliaments and were the subject of a referendum in Switzerland. However, their effectiveness and efficacy concerning macro-financial stability are not well-known. This paper introduces a macroeconomic agent-based model (MABM) in a novel simulation environment to simulate the current monetary system, which may serve as a basis to implement and analyze monetary regime shifts. In this context, the monetary system affects the lending potential of banks and might impact the dynamics of financial crises. MABMs are predestined to replicate emergent financial crisis dynamics, analyze institutional changes within a financial system, and thus measure macro-financial stability. The used simulation environment makes the model more accessible and facilitates exploring the impact of different hypotheses and mechanisms in a less complex way. The model replicates a wide range of stylized economic facts, including simplifying assumptions to reduce model complexity.