Computing job satisfaction with social comparison process : an agent-based approach

In this article we propose a brief overview of Happywork, a multi-agent based model of job satisfaction inspired by well established psychosocial theories. We focus here on the cognitive dimension of job satisfaction that will be built from work features. The model is intended to model and simulate the core mechanisms that underlie individual evaluation of the job. We present here the model and some preliminary results that show significant consequences of job enhancement policy in term of comparison outcom

Un Algorithme Évolutionnaire pour Trouver des Politiques Optimales avec un Simulateur Multi-Agent

International audienceIn this paper, we introduce a new agent-based method to build a decision-aid tool aimed to improve policy design. In our approach, a policy is defined as a set of levers, modelling the set of actions, the means to impact a complex system. Our method is generic, as it could be applied to any domain, and be coupled with any agent-based simulator. We could deal not only with simple levers (a single variable whose value is modified) but also complex ones (multiple variable modifications, qualitative effects, ...), unlike most optimization methods. It is based on the evolutionary algorithm CMA-ES, coupled with a normalized and aggregated fitness function. The fitness is normalized using estimated Ideal (best policy) and Nadir (worst policy) values, these values being dynamically computed during the execution of CMA-ES through a Pareto Front estimated with the ABM simulation. Moreover , to deal with complex levers, we introduce the FSM-branching algorithm, where a Finite State Machine (FSM) determines whether a complex policy can potentially be improved or has to be aborted. We tested our method with Economic Policies on the French Labor Market (FLM), allowing the modification of multiple elements of the FLM, and we compared the results to the reference, the FLM without any policy applied. The policies studied here comprise simple and complex levers. This experience shows the viability of our approach, the efficiency of our algorithms and illustrates how this combination of evolutionary optimization, multi-criteria aggregation and agent-based simulation could help any policy-maker to design better policies

A multi-agent model of the French Labor Market : WORKSIM

International audienceThe model WORKSIM is conceived to simulate the French labor market, with two main objectives,namely to explain how the market functions at the aggregate level and the level of differentcategories of manpower, and to measure the impact of various public policies

An agent-based approach to evaluate the impact of economic dismissals facilitation on the French labor market

National audienceThe El Khomri law (also called " Work law ") has triggered a lot of conflicting judgements among French economists in 2016. However no model has been used to evaluate its effects ex ante. We have developed over the past 10 years a calibrated agent-based model of the French labor market, in order understand better such a complex system, and do policy analysis and design. The model integrates the hetero-geneity of agents, and their decisions (firms and workers) based on a search theoretical framework to generate gross flows. It gives rational microeconomic foundations to behavior , albeit with decision rules using bounded rationality rather than optimal rules in an equilibrium with rational expectations which would not make sense in such a complex system. Instead agents form anticipations based both on their own history and a detailed algorithm is developed to model the firms'computation of expected in-tertemporal profits for different scenarios of future own demand, with the possibility of loss aversion, to decide on hiring or not, and the type of labor contracts. We introduce several main institutions of the labor market and specially the two main labor contracts, Open-Ended contracts and Fixed Term Contracts. The WorkSim model simulates the gross flows between inactivity, unemployment and these two types of employment, with a consistent accounting system. It is calibrated by a powerful algorithm to set 63 parameters in order to fit 64 aggregate real variables. The calibration reveals an important loss aversion on part of firms, which is determinant of the hiring decisions. If we experiment with a low loss aversion, the unemployment diminishes by several points. We then analyze the facilitation of the economic dismissals allowed by the El Khomri law. We find that it has little effect on global unemployment but benefits the young who crowd out the seniors. This result is based on the substitution by the employers of Open Ended Contracts which become more precarious to Fixed Duration Contracts which become less useful, and the fact that young workers are more often in Fixed Term Contracts than the other age categories. The labor market is very deeply transformed in terms of flows also. When aggregate demand is endoge-nously changed, the experiment shows that the employment and the unemployment react more strongly than before the law, yielding a higher aggregate flexibility

WorkSim, an agent-based framework to study labor markets

International audienceIn this paper, we introduce the WorkSim model, a novel agent-based framework to study labor markets. The first objective of the model is to reproduce the gross flows between the important states: employment (distinguishing fixed term contracts and open ended contracts), unemployment and inactivity, and the ratios of individuals in these states. The novelty of the model is that it simulates the flows on the basis of the rational decisions of individual heterogeneous agents. Once the model is calibrated, the second objective is to characterize the nature of the labor market under study. This is done, first by examining the patterns of flows and stocks at the aggregate level and at the levels of different categories of labor, and second by sensitivity experiments, modifying some exogenous parameters and variables such as the demand for the good. Finally the model once calibrated is a tool for experimenting labor market policies, including changes in the labor law in France

Endogenous choices of contract types in an agent-based model of the labor market

International audienceThe Fixed Duration Contracts (FDC) have taken an importance place in the European labor markets, notably in France and Spain. They represent a dominant share of the hires, although most workers hold an Open Ended Contract (OEC) at any given date. There is then a permanent coexistence of the two types of contract that we explain through a trade-off that firms compute between their costs and benefits when deciding to open a vacancy. For the first time are taken simultanously into account for the OEC the firing costs, the advance notice costs, and the losses when the firm is unable to meet the legal requirements to initiate economic dismissals. For the FDC, the specific costs are the termination costs and the waiting cost when a new FDC cannot be opened immediately after a termination. Training and vacancy costs are common to both contracts and included but they are amortized over very different durations among the two contracts and these costs influence the trade-off. We extend WorkSim, an agent-based model of the French labor market which reproduces the gross flows of workers between the different states, employment (FDC and OEC), unemployment and inactivity. The theoretical framework is the costly search by the heterogenous agents, firms and individuals, who interact on the market, taking rationally bounded decisions but learning from their mistakes. The competition takes place in a labor stock-flow consistent framework, taking into account crowding out effects. The model is scaled and calibrated through a poweful algorithm to reach a steady state which reproduces the main observed variables in the labor market in the year 2011 with a correct fit. We generate the main effects of FDC, churning, screening, stepping stone, but also model in detail the buffer effect which is built on an option into an intertemporal decision framework with idiosyncratic anticipations of firms demand. The results of the sensitivity analysis show that pessimistic anticipations and the volatility of demand shocks raise the recourse to FDC but also unemployment. Increasing firing costs also raises unemployment but not in very significant way. Forbidding FDC does not change the employment significantly since the opposite effects of FDC seem to compensate each other. While the model puts into a unified framework the main theoretical ideas that yield the trade-off between FDC and OEC, and can be applied to different countries, it also offers sufficent detail to allow for labor market policy discussion in a given country

Apports des mathématiques et de l’informatique pour la modélisation en sciences humaines et sociales

Si Jean-Pierre Barthélemy est connu pour ses travaux en mathématiques, il s’est très tôt investi dans le domaine des sciences cognitives, et notamment pour la modélisation des processus de décision humains, en combinant des approches mathématiques et informatiques. Dans cet article nous proposons de discuter plus généralement des apports des modèles mathématiques et informatiques pour la modélisation en Sciences humaines et sociales. Nous montrerons comment le couplage entre ces deux méthodes a été particulièrement fructueux dans le cas des travaux de Jean-Pierre Barthélemy qui, dans le cadre d’une approche anthropocentrée, a proposé toute une série de modèles pour le jugement et la décision, à la fois mathématiques et computationnels.Jean-Pierre Barthélemy is renowned for his contributions in mathematics, but he also early on got involved in Cognitive Science, especially to model human decision processes. To do so, he combined mathematical models with computer techniques. In this paper, we first discuss the general issue of modelling in Human and Social Sciences, and how mathematics and computer science can contribute to it. We show then how it is possible to combine these two approaches, and how Jean-Pierre Barthélemy did it in a very efficient and successful way in the “JADAR” project in Brest, under the so-called “anthropocentric” approach

Introducing a temporary help agency in a labor market : a multi-agent model

International audienceExtended abstract Temporary Help Agencies (THA) bring into the labor market a new fundamental feature. They are intermediaries on a market which is modeled as decentralized by the dominant theoretical framework, search theory. This theory explains the flows of hires by the individual search by workers and employers and ensuing matches. THA bring some centralization in this framework. If agents are moved by self interest, some should create such agencies, since they lower search costs through the benefits of specialization, and can earn profits. Introducing intermediaries is then a necessity to give the search model more coherent microfoundations. THA are not the only intermediaries in the real labor market. Many countries have a national placement agency paid by the tax payers. However THA do not only match, they are the legal employers of the workers, and the contract is therefore a particular contract, different from the standard Fixed Term Contracts (FTC). Then THA propose contracts which involve a mark up on wages, and which are competed by the standard FTC, implying search costs for the employing firm. The two types of contracts are substitutes and their coexistence is not obvious. Moreover temporary help jobs have important consequences for the labor market outcomes. THA select the workers for the client firm, and can gain precise information since they evaluate the same worker often for a new contract. Moreover it appears to be commun practice that they provide the worker with the training needed for the job in the client firm, since the short duration of the contract would make it too costly. A consequence is that temporary help workers, beyond being selected among condidates, gain human capital and also some experience on these jobs, three factors that may act as stepping stones for a future Open Ended Contract (OEC). However terminations rarely lead to an immediate OEC and short durations send most of the workers repeatedly into unemployment, delaying integration into OEC. Several major questions can then be tackled by the introduction of a THA in a model of the labor market. In this first paper on the topic, we will study three. First we will show that a calibrated model displays the coexistence of the two types of contracts, as well as the presence of OEC. Second we will study the efficiency that the temporary help contracts can bring to a labor market, notably in terms of unemployment and vacancies. Third we will analyse the consequences for the carreers of young workers. Are temporary help jobs a stepping stones or traps, and for whom ? In order to carry this analysis which is novel in the literature, we introduce a THA in WorkSim, a large Agent Based Model of the French labor market, with 10,000 agents, which involves a scale of 1/4700. It is calibrated by the CMA-ES algorithm which sets 63 parameters to fit optimally 67 aggregated variables (measured for the year 2014). Goudet, Kant & Ballot, (2016) give a description of the first version of the model. The current version (Ballot, Kant & Goudet 2015) adds the endogenization of the choice between Fixed Term Contracts (FTC) and OEC, based on the total expected costs of each type of contract and anticipations by the firms on their own demand. We then give to the FTC a role of buffer. The decisions of the agents are based on search theory, albeit in a bounded rational context. This is justified on cognitive ground but also by the complexity of a labor market marked by the heterogeneity of our agents. Search theory allows to distinguish inactive 1 UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7606, LIP

A characterization of nonemptiness and boundedness of the solution set for set-valued vector equilibrium problems via scalarization and stability results

International audienceAttitude is a key concept in social psychology. The paper presents a novel agent-based model to simulate attitude formation by combining a rational and an emotional components based on cognitive, psychological and social theories. Individuals of the artificial population perceive actions taken by actors such as government or brands, they form an attitude toward them and also communicate the events through a social network. The model outputs are first studied through a functional analysis in which some unique macroscopic behaviors have emerged such as the impact of social groups, the resistance of the population toward disinformation campaigns or the social pressure. We then applied our model on a real world scenario depicting the effort of French Forces in their stabilization operations in Kapisa (Afghanistan) between 2010 and 2012. We calibrated the model parameters based on this scenario and the results of opinion polls that were conducted in the area during the same period about the sentiment of the population toward the Forces. Our model was able to reproduce polls results with a global error under 3%. Based on these results, we show the different dynamics tendencies that emerged among the population by applying a non-supervised classification algorithm