Teaching Agent-Based Computational Economics to Graduate Students

Abstract: Agent-based computational economics (ACE) is roughly defined as the computational study of economies modelled as evolving decentralized systems of au-tonomous interacting agents. A key focus of ACE research is understanding how global regularities arise from the bottom up, through the repeated local interactions of au-tonomous agents channeled through socio-economic institutions, rather than from top down coordination mechanisms such as imposed market clearing constraints or an as-sumption of single representative agents. This paper discusses how ACE materials have been introduced into graduate-level courses in macroeconomic theory over the past sev-eral years, using an ACE labor market framework for concrete illustration.