Why is this the case? Has the OR-related simulation community missed the ABS bus? Are they monolithically stuck in a proverbial rut? Will they soon be outshone and shown to be outdated by simulation work in other communities? Can we expect DES to be completely redundant and incapable of solving the key problems in OR? This contrasts with the much greater volume of ABS papers in journals from disciplines such as Computer Science, the Social Sciences, and Economics. ![]() However, there is relatively little evidence that ABS is much used in the OR community, there being few publications relating to its use in OR and OR-related simulation journals. The arrival of agent-based simulation (ABS) in the early 1990s promised to offer something novel, interesting, and potentially highly applicable to OR. In this case, it would be good to integrate the DES event clock into the ABS model.Discrete-event simulation (DES) has been the mainstay of the Operational Research (OR) simulation community for over 40 years. however, in many systems, the individuals and their behaviors are typically distributed at the discrete events of time, which can be a problem. Many ABS tools are pre-set as using the "time slicing" approach, meaning all agent behaviors have to be synchronized in every tick. However, there is one weakness associated with ABS approach to model a more process-based system like the supply chain. It easily allows the individuals to be defined with the heterogeneous characteristics and behaviors meaning the greater flexibilities for modellers to profile a system. ![]() DES generally discounts the autonoumous control and descision process of its key elements (entities/workstations largely being passive and not easy to implement complex rules). ![]() Due to this feature, I think DES can only tackle the operational/tactical problems (e.g. From my viewpoint, DES is probably more suitable for representing a queueing system, as its modelling design emphasizes on the individual journey of entities flowing through a system, involving a number of processes. Visit me on Thanks for good opinions from both. This post is part of my Simulation101 blog on all things simulation. What if we had models where individuals can be different from each other, follow their own (rational or non-rational) agenda and interact with each other? Oh, it already exists? What is it called? Agent-based modelling J In your opinion, why is there so little simulation in the economics world? Do you think it is justified to stick with the old, elegant mathematical models or has the past shown they are useless? Share your thoughts and join me in congratulating Angus Deaton. Well, unpredictable to models assuming population-wide rationality. Not just for interest but because it matters: if a part of a population does not behave rationally, this can cause unpredictable outcomes. Angus Deaton always preferred to explore the variation. However, in crisis (personal or global), homo economicus departs neat model assumptions. This is often fine and working well in times of “normal” activities. Many economic models adore averages and approximations. On average, my electric car is never used. Let’s explore how agent-based simulation is just the next in line from where he started… From Micro to Macro I think Angus Deaton believes the same, at least his work speaks for it. But how does his work relate to the field of agent-based simulation, if at all? First, a disclaimer: I am by no means an economist but I hold a pet interest in the field and believe it can benefit enormously by widening its horizon. ![]() Maybe you heard of the Nobel prize in economics and maybe you vaguely heard about the laureate, Angus Deaton. I have been there many times before: it is tricky to relate to a simulation model but everyone grasps his own history of stress and that it is quite a delicate beast that feeds off hundreds of factors. “Interesting”, the potential clients said, “but how did you actually model the psychological impact?”. It helps estimate workforce stress levels based on actual workload and is used in classified areas of government. I recently introduced a simulation model of mine to some potential clients.
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