More is Different... and Complex! The Case for Agent-Based Macroeconomics

Giovanni Dosi and Andrea Roventini

LEM Papers Series from Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: This work nests the Agent-Based macroeconomic perspective into the earlier history of macroeconomics. We discuss how the discipline in the 70's took a perverse path relying on models grounded on fictitious rational representative agent in order to try to pathetically circumvent aggregation and coordination problems. The Great Recession was a natural experiment for macroeconomics, showing the inadequacy of the predominant theoretical framework grounded on DSGE models. After discussing the pathological fallacies of the DSGE-based approach, we claim that macroeconomics should consider the economy as a complex evolving system, i.e. as an ecology populated by heterogenous agents, whose far-from-equilibrium interactions continuously change the structure of the system. This in turn implies that more is different: macroeconomics cannot be shrink to representative-agent micro, but agents' complex interactions lead to emergence of new phenomena and hierarchical structure at the macro level. This is what is taken into account by agent-based models, which provide a novel way to model complex economies from the bottom-up, with sound empirically-based micro-foundations. We present the foundations of Agent-Based macroeconomics and we discuss how the contributions of this special issue push its frontier forward. Finally, we conclude by discussing the ways ahead for the fully acknowledgement of agent-based models as the standard way of theorizing in macroeconomics.

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Economic Policy; Keynesian Theory; New Neoclassical Synthesis; New Keynesian Models; DSGE Models; Agent-Based Evolutionary Models; Complexity Theory; Great Recession; Crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-01-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-hme, nep-hpe, nep-mac and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (112)

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Journal Article: More is different... and complex! the case for agent-based macroeconomics (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2019/01

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