Interactions and Markets

15 November 2004 - 19 November 2004

Research Directions

The idea that a large collection of interacting objects can produce behaviour at the aggregate level which could not be thought of as corresponding to some blown up version of individual beahaviou is far from new. What is newer is the idea that such systems may tend to organise themselves and, perhaps, that there may be common features of that behaviour in many, apparently very different, types of system.

In standard economics, many of the features of the interactions among agents are what have been referred to as "externalities", the fact that the behaviour of some individuals has direct consequences for others. Such externalities are however thought of as market imperfections. The main theme of the workhop is that they should instead considered as central, not marginal.

This approach has produced by now a large literature dealing with: (1) externalities and general equilibrium, (2) models of growth based on the behaviour of myopic agents, (3) choice of techniques based on non-perfectly rational agents, (4) evolutionary game-theoretic models, (5) simulation-based models of markets and financial markets in particular.

The aim of the workshop would be to focus on any of the topics briefly sketched above, with the perticipants presenting their recent work. The idea is to have three or at most four presentations each day, which should leave ample time for discussion.