Agent-Based Social Systems
Volume 9
Editor in Chief:
Hiroshi Deguchi, Yokohama, Japan
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

The first tentative efforts at ‘simulating societies’ using agent-based models were
made in the early 1990s. Since then, there has been an explosive growth in the ap-
plication of agent-based modelling in the social sciences, with applications in nearly
the whole suite of disciplines, including economics, sociology, geography, political
science, anthropology, linguistics and even social history. At first, the emphasis was
mainly on small, simple models that could illuminate basic social science theories.
For example, we saw models showing how cultures could differentiate, residen-
tial segregation could emerge from household moving decisions, political opinions
could diverge towards the extremes and other similar examples. In addition, there
was a cross-fertilisation with game theory, since agent-based modelling enabled
scholars to break free of the constraints imposed by the need to obtain analytical
solutions from mathematical formulations.

本书包含大量例子可供学习