A Complex Lens for Economics, or: About Ants and their Anthill

Thinking of agent-based models in terms of artifacts, useful to explore economic complexity, means introducing three concepts: on a technical side, an agent-based methodology; in a social sciences perspective, the idea of building artifacts also within the social domain; in a more general view, the idea of complexity. Bearing in mind the theoretical roots of cybernetics and, more recently, of complexity science, we need also technical roots, with the capability of building models that are acceptable to a wide audience, of comparing classic and new models, and of proposing hybrid structures as well. Finally, we need to pay attention to the agents’ abilities, mainly in mimicking the human capability for learning and adapting.