Agent-Based Modelling: A Methodology for Neo-Schumpeterian Economics

Modellers have had to wrestle with an unavoidable trade-off between the demand of a general theoretical approach and the descriptive accuracy required to model a particular phenomenon. A new class of simulation models has shown to be well adapted to this challenge, basically by shifting outwards this trade-off: So-called agent-based models (ABMs henceforth) are increasingly used for the modelling of socioeconomic developments. Our paper deals with the new requirements for modelling entailed by the necessity to focus on qualitative developments, pattern formation, etc. which is generally highlighted within Neo-Schumpeterian Economics and the possibilities given by ABMs.