DIT Model

The software DIT, built in Parma at the Department of Economics on SWARM libraries, runs an artificial lattice-type 40x40 world by means of agent-based modeling. It simulates a coordination game in which agents seek, try out and maintain coordination in the presence of positive search and coordination costs. Agents are perfectly rational in the sense that they optimise their individual payoff through coordination. Agents are endowed with randomly distributed functionalities and learning abilities. In a context of radical uncertainty, simulated through random mutation of functionalities, with agents facing coordination costs, coordination often fails both in terms of process and final outcome. Even in the absence of opportunism, thus, extensive coordination is not ensured. Moreover rationality, learning and mutation on one hand optimise search costs and make the artificial world of the experiment more realistic, allowing to simulate a whole range of behaviours, from loyalty and fairness to opportunism. Moreover many different regulatory, incentive-based and institutional frameworks can be tested in order to evaluate their role in preventing coordination failure. The software provides a complete set of monitoring devices, graphs as well as saving and exporting facilities.