Ecological theory and modeling

This paper investigates how collective action is affected when the interaction is driven by the underlying hierarchical structure of an organization, e.g., a company. The performance of collection action is measured as the rate of contribution to a public good, e.g., an organization’s objective.

I am interested in using agent-based model to understand the behavior of financial markets

Matteo Richiardi is an internationally recognised scholar in  micro-simulation modelling (this includes dynamic microsimulations and agent-based modelling). His work on micro-simulations involves both methodological research on estimation and validation techniques, and applications to the analysis of distributional outcomes, the functioning of the labour market and welfare systems. He is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Microsimulation. Examples of his work are the two recent books “Elements of Agent-based Computational Economics”, published by Cambridge University Press (2016), and “The political economy of work security and flexibility: Italy in comparative perspective”, published by Policy Press (2012).

Two themes unite my research: a commitment to methodological creativity and innovation as expressed in my work with computational social sciences, and an interest in the political economy of “globalization,” particularly its implications for the ontological claims of international relations theory.

I have demonstrated how the methods of computational social sciences can model bargaining and social choice problems for which traditional game theory has found only indeterminate and multiple equilibria. My June 2008 article in International Studies Quarterly (“Coordination in Large Numbers,” vol. 52, no. 2) illustrates that, contrary to the expectation of collective action theory, large groups may enjoy informational advantages that allow players with incomplete information to solve difficult three-choice coordination games. I extend this analysis in my 2009 paper at the International Studies Association annual convention, in which I apply ideas from evolutionary game theory to model learning processes among players faced with coordination and commitment problems. Currently I am extending this research to include social network theory as a means of modeling explicitly the patterns of interaction in large-n (i.e. greater than two) player coordination and cooperation games. I argue in my paper at the 2009 American Political Science Association annual convention that computational social science—the synthesis of agent-based modeling, social network analysis and evolutionary game theory—empowers scholars to analyze a broad range of previously indeterminate bargaining problems. I also argue this synthesis gives researchers purchase on two of the central debates in international political economy scholarship. By modeling explicitly processes of preference formation, computational social science moves beyond the rational actor model and endogenizes the processes of learning that constructivists have identified as essential to understanding change in the international system. This focus on the micro foundations of international political economy in turn allows researchers to understand how social structural features emerge and constrain actor choices. Computational social science thus allows IPE to formalize and generalize our understandings of mutual constitution and systemic change, an observation that explains the paradoxical interest of constructivists like Ian Lustick and Matthew Hoffmann in the formal methods of computational social science. Currently I am writing a manuscript that develops these ideas and applies them to several challenges of globalization: developing institutions to manage common pool resources; reforming capital adequacy standards for banks; and understanding cascading failures in global networks.

While computational social science increasingly informs my research, I have also contributed to debates about the epistemological claims of computational social science. My chapter with James N. Rosenau in Complexity in World Politics (ed. by Neil E. Harrison, SUNY Press 2006) argues that agent-based modeling suffers from underdeveloped and hidden epistemological and ontological commitments. On a more light-hearted note, my article in PS: Political Science and Politics (“Clocks, Not Dartboards,” vol. 39, no. 3, July 2006) discusses problems with pseudo-random number generators and illustrates how they can surprise unsuspecting teachers and researchers.

• Modeling human-plant interactions in the origin of agriculture: Multiparadigmatic modeling and simulation (ABM, System Dynamics) of the interaction between humans and plants during domestication.
• Modeling cooperation in small-scale food economies: Agent-based modeling and simulation of the mechanisms involved in the emergence and disruption of cooperative behavior and institutions.
• Models of resource metabolism: study of matter, information and energy flows in systems with living agents at all scales.
• Modeling prehistoric hunting: modeling hunting at the scale of individuals to understand the immediate constraints of hunting as an ecological, economical and social activity.
• Modeling the interaction between herding and farming in arid environments: Agent-based modeling and simulation of the mechanisms involved in the formation and change of agro-pastoral land use patterns (sedentary farming and mobile herding) in the arid Afro-Eurasia.
• Models for games, games for models: Explore the intersection between modeling in Archaeology and game design, aiming to improve our understanding of the long-term implications of human behavior.