This Chapter extends some economic models that take advantage of a formalism inspired from statistical mechanics to account for social influence in individual decisions. Starting with a framework suggested by Durlauf, Blume and Brock, we introduce three classes of models shifting progressively from rational towards adaptive expectations. We discuss the risk and opportunity of transposing the to...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the bazaars and shopping centers as public spaces. Given theweakness of public places and consequently the weakness of social interactions, today’s societies are in dire need ofsocial spaces to increase social interactions. Therefore, the review of these two as then and now’s urban spaces couldhelp solve some problems. Bazaars are among the oldest Iranian...

Economies are instances of complex socio-technical systems that are shaped by the interactions of large numbers of individuals. The individual behavior and decision-making of consumer agents is determined by complex psychological dynamics that include their own assessment of present and future economic conditions as well as those of others, potentially leading to feedback loops that affect the ...

Collective behavior of the complex socio-economic systems is heavily influenced by the herding, group, behavior of individuals. The importance of the herding behaviormay enable the control of the collective behavior of the individuals. In this contribution we consider a simple agent-based herding model modified to include agents with controlled state. We show that in certain case even the small...

Social science addresses systems in which the individual actions of participants interacting in complex, non-additive ways through institutional structures determine social outcomes. In many cases, the institutions incorporate enough negative feedback to stabilize the resulting outcome as an equilibrium. We study a particular type of such equilibria, quantal response statistical equilibrium (QR...

Water issues in Australia have been viewed in the context of diminishing and uncertain water security and increasing demand. Managing water demand and expanding existing water supply are priorities for Australian water management institutions. Water prices are rising or set to rise in most parts of the country, there are rebates to households who install water saving devices and appliances, and...

This paper gives a brief introduction to the theory of dynamic games as developed mostly by control theorists and engineers and presents some economic applications of this theory. The paper shows how the theory of dynamic games can be applied to problems of economic policy-making with heterogeneous policy-makers, whose behavior is characterized by strategic interactions. In particular, for the ...

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