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Simulating the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Systems

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Networked Governance

Abstract

To the two traditional modes of doing science, in vivo (observation) and in vitro (experimentation), has been added “in silico”: computer simulation. It has become routine in the natural sciences, as well as in systems planning and business process management (Baines et al. 2004; Laguna and Marklund 2013; Paul et al. 1999) to recreate the dynamics of physical systems in computer code. The code is then executed to give outputs that describe how a system evolves from given inputs. Simulation models of simple physical processes, like boiling water or materials rupturing, give precise outputs that reliably match the outcomes of the actual physical system. However, as Winsberg (2010, p. 71) argues, scientists who rely on simulations do so because they “assume as background knowledge that we already know a great deal about how to build good models of the very features of the target system that we are interested in learning about.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Statistics uses simulations for finding numerical solutions, and simulations use statistics for summarizing outcomes, but as types of models they are distinguished respectively by aiming to model the world through statistical expressions of data-generating mechanisms and by aiming to model the world through interactions of decision-making agents.

  2. 2.

    Source: www.theyrule.net; data used with permission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bavarian School of Public Policy, Richard-Wagner-Straße 1, 80333, München, Germany

    Jürgen Pfeffer

  2. Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Momin M. Malik

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  1. Jürgen Pfeffer
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Correspondence to Jürgen Pfeffer .

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  1. SOCIUM—Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Betina Hollstein

  2. Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences IPA Institute for Employment Relations and Labour, Helmut-Schmidt-University—University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Wenzel Matiaske

  3. Political Science Department, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Kai-Uwe Schnapp

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Pfeffer, J., Malik, M.M. (2017). Simulating the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Systems. In: Hollstein, B., Matiaske, W., Schnapp, KU. (eds) Networked Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50386-8_9

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