Serious Games for Economists

This chapter explores the methodological issues of modelling human behaviour at the relatively high abstraction level of the differences between individual-based and systems perspectives. Following earlier literature it will be argued that formal frameworks in the social sciences are essentially deductive, as they can be read as implications derived from a set of axioms, or postulates. However, in the social sciences implications derived from postulates do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence with empirical observations. This marks an important difference with the natural sciences, highlighted by the possibility in the social sciences of choosing one of several formal frameworks. Therefore, a criterion is needed for judging the explanatory value of a model.An attractive criterion, based on computer simulations using agent-based models, is the possibility of replicating a stylised version of an observed phenomenon. We argue that parallel to efforts taken in this direction, agent-based methods could also benefit from so-called serious games, where techniques from Artificial Intelligence in computer games are adapted for purposes other than entertainment.