Bounded confidence models generate more secondary clusters when the number of agents is growing

Abstract

We study the bounded confidence model on a growing population. We compare simulations of the agent model, its version in continuous densities and with the standard influence function or a smoother influence function. We find that the model on a growing population generates bigger secondary clusters and more systematically than when the population is fixed. Moreover, our tests with the smooth influence function suggest that these secondary clusters can be generated by a different mechanism when the population is growing than when it is fixed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure