Agent-Based Models as a Means of Testing of Management Solutions

Abstract

The paper shows the application of agent-based approach to modeling of social, ecological and economic processes. An overview of the most typical agent-based model (ABM), developed in recent years to solve practical problems of territorial administration is given. The expediency of using ABM as a development planning tool areas, including strategic, is shown. A territory-population model developed by the authors is based on the behavior of individual members of artificial society and simulates the processes of mortality, fertility and migration. The creation of new agents (birth of children) in the model is the result of the choice of female agents of reproductive age, and this choice depends on their value system. At the same time the population of agents in this regard is not uniform - agents stick to different reproductive strategies: modern (low fertility), and traditional (high fertility). The migration of agents depends on the difference in the level of per capita income both between different areas within a country and between countries. The migration variants for individual agent depend on it’s social ties. The presented design served as the basis for creating three ABMs: 1) model of reproduction of the population of St. Petersburg; 2) labor migration model from the border areas of China into Russia; 3) model of internal and external migration in the European Union. All models have been tested in the course of computer experiments on real data. Preliminary results show an adequate response to changing patterns of controlled parameters related to the economic and institutional characteristics of the agents of the environment.

Keywords

• agent-based modeling
• demography
• international migration
• labor migration
• prediction of population size and structure
• territory planning