Complexity Economics

Complexity economics is an interdisciplinary field between economics and complex systems that is studying economic phenomena in the context of complex systems. This approach is considering the economy as a complex system, and the web of actors and relationships in the economy displays features such as heterogeneity, emergence, non-linearity, system dynamics, near-deomposability, and many more... in other words it displays of the characteristics of a living complex system.

Brian Arthur has spent most of his life coining and researching the field of complexity economics and some additional excellent resources can be found on the page of the Santa Fe Institute.

Another field of research in economics and complex systems comes from computational approaches to economics, such as agent-based modeling. The field of computational economics lies at the intersection between computational social science and complexity economics. Some of the most relevant research in the field can be found here.

CitySim.mov


This agent-based model from the NetLogo models library shows the spread and growth of a city around new industries, but also the effects of growth on the quality of life at the outskirts of the city.

"Our inequities must be equally shared." (SELF-ANNIHILATING SENTENCES - Saul Gorn's Compendium Of Rarely Used Cliches, 1985)