Comments on: Limitations on the Perspective of Representative Economic Agent: Agent Based Model’s Alternative https://economicphilosophy2017.weaconferences.net/papers/limitations-on-the-perspective-of-representative-economic-agent-agent-based-models-alternative/ Complexities in Economics Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:42:14 +0000 hourly 1 By: João Victor Souza da Silva https://economicphilosophy2017.weaconferences.net/papers/limitations-on-the-perspective-of-representative-economic-agent-agent-based-models-alternative/#comment-105 Thu, 30 Nov 2017 20:01:10 +0000 http://economicphilosophy2017.weaconferences.net/?post_type=wea_paper&p=198#comment-105 Dear Davis,
Thank you very much for your consideration. This is a problem that greatly disturbs me, about the need for a rational maximizing agent. Linear models of equilibrium are based on centrality in the rational, static and universal subject. What then grounds complex systems if not the conception of another type of agent, not maximizing, adaptive? What is the need to seek the optimization of the agent in a model that is characteristically far from a static, macro-level optimal point?

My great quest for understanding complex systems is to seek to understand the role of the agent in this process. But is another conception of subject enough to guide understanding of economics as a complex system? How are ABM / ACE models useful for methodologically and epistemologically reshaping Economic Science?

]]> By: johndavis https://economicphilosophy2017.weaconferences.net/papers/limitations-on-the-perspective-of-representative-economic-agent-agent-based-models-alternative/#comment-102 Thu, 30 Nov 2017 18:23:20 +0000 http://economicphilosophy2017.weaconferences.net/?post_type=wea_paper&p=198#comment-102 I believe this entry point, the nature of the agent in a complex world, is an important focus, unfortunately somewhat overlooked by many commentators in this conference. The essential intuition that the authors investigate is how complex systems, as contrasted with equilibrium systems, require agents constantly able to adjust their behavior. That idea is at odds with the idea that agents are rational optimizers. How can you optimize if the world is highly dynamic? One thing that worries me, then, is that some researchers who take complexity seriously think that you can simply insert rational optimizers into a complex world and explain economic behavior. I think this is a mistaken view, but until researchers make some effort to develop an alternative agent conception appropriate to a complex world, it seems complexity researchers will still operate with one foot in an old neoclassical world that they otherwise reject. This paper is very helpful in redirecting attention to the issue of what agents are in a complex world.

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