An agent-based information management model of the Chinese pig sector

This paper investigates the effect of a selected top-down measure (what-if scenario) on actual agent behaviour and total system behaviour by means of an agent-based simulation model, when agents’ behaviour cannot fully be managed because the agents are autonomous. The Chinese pork sector serves as case. A multi-level perspective is adopted: the top-down information management measures for improving pork quality, the variation in individual farmer behaviour, and the interaction structures with supply chain partners, governmental representatives and peer farmers. To improve quality, farmers need information, which they can obtain from peers, suppliers and government. Satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their personal situation initiates change of behaviour. Aspects of personality and culture affect the agents’ evaluations, decisions and actions. Results indicate that both incentive (demand) and the possibility to move (quality level within reach) on farmer level are requirements for an increase of total system quality. A more informative governmental representative enhances this effec

Computational Modeling of Uncertainty Avoidance in Consumer Behavior

Human purchasing behavior is affected by many influential factors. Culture at macro-level and personality at micro-level influence consumer purchasing behavior. People of different cultures tend to accept the values of their own group and consequently have different purchasing behavior. Also, people in the same culture have some differences in their purchases which can be described by their personal characteristics. Therefore, this paper studies Uncertainty Avoidance dimension of Hofstede culture model in consumer behavior as well as four personality traits. The consumer model includes three important module including perception, evaluation of the alternatives and post-purchase. Our experimental results show that people of high uncertainty avoidance tend to purchase the high quality products as well as famous brands to reduce the risk of their purchases. On the other hand, people in high uncertainty tolerant culture tend to purchase the new products. The paper discusses about the validity of the proposed model based on empirical dat

Agent-Based Modeling of Consumer Decision making Process Based on Power Distance and Personality

Simulating consumer decision making processes involves different disciplines such as: sociology, social psychology, marketing, and computer science. In this paper, we propose an agent-based conceptual and computational model of consumer decision-making based on culture, personality and human needs. It serves as a model for individual behavior in models that investigate system-level resulting behavior. Theoretical concepts operationalized in the model are the Power Distance dimension of Hofstede’s model of national culture; Extroversion, Agreeableness and Openness of Costa and McCrae’s five-factor model of personality, and social status and social responsibility needs. These factors are used to formulate the utility function, process and update the agent state, need recognition and action estimation modules of the consumer decision process. The model was validated against data on culture, personality, wealth and car purchasing from eleven European countries. It produces believable results for the differences of consumer purchasing across eleven European countries

Mental activity and culture : The elusive real world

How does culture affect mental activity? That question, applied to the design of social agents, is tackled in this chapter. Mental activity acts on the perceived outside world. It does so in three steps: perceive, interpret, select action. We see that when culture is taken into account, objective reality disappears to a large extent. Instead, perception, interpretation and action selection can differ in many ways between agents from different cultures. This complicates the design of artificially intelligent systems. On the other hand, theory exists that can help us deal with these complications. All people have a shared set of drives and capacities, on which cultures are built. Good knowledge exists on how culture affects perception, interpretation, and action. Empirical research has uncovered major distinctions in social life across cultures. One could say that intelligent agents with different cultures live in the same social world, but in systematically different social landscapes. This social world—in the form of generic sociological theory—and these differences—in the form of cross-cultural theory—can be used for designing these agents. The state of the art is still tentative. The chapter gives examples from recent literature that can serve as points of departure for further work

A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change

Modelling the economics of climate change is daunting. Many existing methodologies from social and physical sciences need to be deployed, and new modelling techniques and ideas still need to be developed. Existing bread-and-butter micro- and macroeconomic tools, such as the expected utility framework, market equilibrium concepts and representative agent assumptions, are far from adequate. Four key issues—along with several others—remain inadequately addressed by economic models of climate change, namely: (1) uncertainty, (2) aggregation, heterogeneity and distributional implications (3) technological change, and most of all, (4) realistic damage functions for the economic impact of the physical consequences of climate change. This paper assesses the main shortcomings of two generations of climate-energy-economic models and proposes that a new wave of models need to be developed to tackle these four challenges. This paper then examines two potential candidate approaches—dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models and agent-based models (ABM). The successful use of agent-based models in other areas, such as in modelling the financial system, housing markets and technological progress suggests its potential applicability to better modelling the economics of climate change