Abstract
Current approaches to deal with the socio-economic implications of climate change rely heavily on economic models that compare costs and benefits of different measures. We show that the theoretical foundations underpinning current approaches to economic modelling of climate change are inappropriate for the type of questions that are being asked. We argue therefore that another tradition of modelling, social simulation, is more appropriate in dealing with the complex environmental problems we face today.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. Allais, Le Comportement de l'Homme Rationnel Devant le Risque: Critique des postulats et Axiomes de l'Ecole Americaine, Econometrica 21 (1953) 503–546.
J.R. Anderson, Rules of the Mind (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillside, NJ, 1993).
K.J. Arrow and G. Debreu, Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy, Econometrica (1954) 265–290.
K.J. Arrow and F.H. Hahn, General Competitive Analysis (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1972).
S. Bernow, A. Rudkevich, M. Ruth and I. Peters, A Pragmatic CGE model for assessing the influence of model structure and assumptions in climate change policy analysis, Report No. #96-190, Tellus Institute Boston (1998).
K. Binmore, M. Piccione and L. Samuelson, Bargaining between automata, in: Simulating Social Phenomena, Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, eds. R. Conte, R. Hegselmann and P. Terna (Springer, Berlin, 1997) pp. 113–132.
K. Carley, M. Prietula and Z. Lin, Design Versus Cognition: The Interaction of Agent Cognition and Organizational Design on Organizational Performance 1 (1998); http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/1/3/1.html.
P. Checkland, Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (Wiley, Chichester, 1993).
J.B. Clark, The Distribution of Wealth (Macmillan, New York, 1893).
G. Debreu, Excess demand functions, J. Mathematical Economics 1 (1974) 15–23.
S. Funtowicz and J. Ravetz, Science for the post-normal age, Futures 25 (1993) 735–755.
G.C. Harcourt, Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1972).
K. Hasselmann and S. Hasselmann, Multi-actor opimization of greenhouse gas emission paths using coupled integral climate response and economic models, in: Earth System Analysis - Integrating Science for Sustainability, eds. H.-J. Schellnhuber and V. Wenzel (Springer, Berlin, 1998).
W.P. Hogan, Technical Progress and Production Functions, The Review of Economics and Statistics 40 (1958) 407–411.
D. Kahneman and A. Tverski, Prospect theory: an analysis of decision-making under risk, Econometrica 47 (1985) 263–291.
N. Kaldor, Speculation and Economic Stability, Review of EconomicStudies [reprinted in: Kaldor Essays on Economic Stability and Growth] (Gerald Duckworth & Co., London, 1939 [1960]) pp. 17–58.
R.G. Lipsey and K.J. Lancaster, The general theory of the second best, Review of Economic Studies 24 (1956) 11–32.
R.J. Mantel, On the characterisation of aggregate excess demand, J. Economic Theory 7 (1974) 348–353.
Marshall, Principles of Economics (Macmillan, London, 1893 [1961]); (8th ed. (variorum edition) published in 1961).
S. Moss, An Economic Theory of Business Strategy (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1980).
S. Moss, H. Gaylard, S. Wallis and B. Edmonds, SDML: amulti-agent language for organisational modelling, Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory 4 (1998) 43–69.
S. Moss, The Economics of positive methodology, in: Economics as Worldly Philosophy, eds. R. Blackwell, J. Chatha and E. Nell (Macmillan, New York, 1992).
S. Moss, Critical incident management: an empirically derived computational model, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 1 (1998); http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/1/4/1.html.
S. Moss, A cognitively rich methodology for modelling emergent socioeconomic phenomena, in: Computational Techniques for Modelling Learning in Economics, ed. T. Brenner (Kluwer Academic, Amsterdam, 1999).
S. Moss, Applications-centred multi agent systems design (with special reference to markets and rational agency), in: Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Multi Agent Systems, IEEE (2000).
A. Newell, Unified Theories of Cognition (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990).
W. Nordhaus, Managing the Global Commons. The Economics of Climate Change (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994).
N. Oreskes, K. Shrader-Frechette and N. Belitz, Verification, validation and conformation of numerical models in the Earth sciences, Science 263 (1994) 641–646.
C. Pahl-Wostl, The Dynamic Nature of Ecosystems: Chaos and Order Entwined (Wiley, Chichester, 1995) p. 288.
C. Pahl-Wostl, Integrated assessment of regional climate change and a new role for computer models at the interface between science and society, in: Prospects for Integrated Environmental Assessment: Lessons Learnt from the Case of Climate Change, eds. A. Sors, A. Liberatore, S. Funtowicz, J.C. Hourcade and J.L. Fellous, European Commission, DG XII, Toulouse (1996) pp. 156–160.
C. Pahl-Wostl, C.C. Jaeger, S. Rayner, C. Schär, M. Van Asselt, D.M. Imboden and A. Vckovski, Integrated assessment of climate change and the problem of indeterminacy, in: Views from the Alps: Regional Perspectives on Climate Change, eds. P. Cebon, U. Dahinden, H.C. Davies, D.M. Imboden and C.C. Jaeger (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998) pp. 435–498.
G. Porter and H. Livesay, Merchants and Manufacturers (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, MD, 1971).
R. Radner, Competitive equilibrium under uncertainty, Econometrica 10 (1968) 31–59.
J. Rotmans and H. Dowlatabadi, Integrated assessment of climate change: evaluation of methods and strategies, in: Human Choice and Climate Change, eds. S. Rayner and L. Malone (Battelle Press, Columbus Ohio, 1998).
A.H. Sanstad and L.A. Greening, Economic models for climate policy analysis: A critical discussion, Environmental Modelling and Assessment 3 (1998) 3–18.
S. Shackley, P. Young, S. Parkinson and B. Wynne, Uncertainty, complexity and concepts of good science in climate change modelling: are GCMs the best tools?, Climate Change 38 (1998) 159–205.
A. Shaikh, Laws of production and laws of distribution: the humbug production function, The Review of Economics and Statistics 56 (1974) 115–120.
R. Solow, Technical change and the aggregate production function, The Review of Economics and Statistics 39 (1957) 312–320.
R. Solow, Laws of production and laws of distribution: the humbug production function: a comment, The Review of Economics and Statistics 56 (1974) 121.
D. Tillman, T. Larsen, C. Pahl-Wostl and W. Gujer, Modelling the actors in water supply systems, Water Science and Technology 39, 203–211.
M. Ye and K. Carley, Radar Soar: towards an artificial organization composed of intelligent agents, Journal ofMathematical Sociology 20 (1995) 219–246.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moss, S., Pahl-Wostl, C. & Downing, T. Agent-based integrated assessment modelling: the example of climate change. Integrated Assessment 2, 17–30 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011527523183
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011527523183