Competition, training, heterogeneity persistence, and aggregate growth in a multi-agent evolutionary model

Gérard Ballot and Erol Taymaz

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2000, vol. 03, issue 01n04, 335-351

Abstract: We use the framework of a multi-agent based macroeconomic model to analyse the possibility in the long run of the coexistence of two alternative types of firm behaviour towards the accumulation of human capital, training and poaching, and its aggregate outcomes. Besides R&D, we assume that firms need workers endowed with general human capital (or competencies) in order to innovate but also, although to much lower extent, in order to imitate innovations. Firms can either train workers or poach trained workers. Firms are assigned a type, and experiments compare the outcomes of the change of key parameters. The main results are: i) the coexistence of trainers and poachers is possible in the long run, and can even be beneficial to the economy when poachers raid inefficient trainers, ii) trainers fare somewhat better than poachers do, iii) mobility costs have a major negative impact on aggregate performance.

Keywords: multi-agent model; evolutionary economics; training; growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525900000248

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