This book presents the contributions to the first Wild@Ace conference. The acronym stands for “Workshop on Industrial and Labor Dynamics — The Agent-Based Computational Aproach”, and it has been the first event ever focusing on the very promising use of the agent-based simulation approach for investigation of labor economics and industrial organization issues.Agent-based models are computer models in which a multitude of agents — each embodied in a specific software code — interact. These agents can represent individuals households, firms, institutions, etc. Moreover, “special” agents can be added to observe and monitor individual and collective behavior. One of the main purpose of writing an ACE model is to gain intuitions on the two-way feedback between the microstructure and the macrostructure of a phenomenon of interest. How is it that simple aggregate regularities may arise from individual disorder? Or that a nice structure at an individual level may lead to a complete absence of regularity in the aggregate? How is it that the complex interaction of very simple individuals may lead to surprisingly complicated aggregate dynamics? Or that sophisticated agents may be unable to organize themselves in any interesting way?The book includes contributions by some of the most distinguished researchers in the field, such as the economists Alan Kirman, Giovanni Dosi, Leigh Tesfatsion and Mauro Gallegati, and the sociologist Nigel Gilbert.

This book presents the contributions to the first Wild@Ace conference. The acronym stands for ?Workshop on Industrial and Labor Dynamics ? The Agent-Based Computational Aproach?, and it has been the first event ever focusing on the very promising use of the agent-based simulation approach for investigation of labor economics and industrial organization issues.Agent-based models are computer models in which a multitude of agents ? each embodied in a specific software code ? interact. These agents can represent individuals households, firms, institutions, etc. Moreover, ?special? agents can be added to observe and monitor individual and collective behavior. One of the main purpose of writing an ACE model is to gain intuitions on the two-way feedback between the microstructure and the macrostructure of a phenomenon of interest. How is it that simple aggregate regularities may arise from individual disorder? Or that a nice structure at an individual level may lead to a complete absence of regularity in the aggregate? How is it that the complex interaction of very simple individuals may lead to surprisingly complicated aggregate dynamics? Or that sophisticated agents may be unable to organize themselves in any interesting way?The book includes contributions by some of the most distinguished researchers in the field, such as the economists Alan Kirman, Giovanni Dosi, Leigh Tesfatsion and Mauro Gallegati, and the sociologist Nigel Gilbert.

This tutorial book presents an augmented selection of the material presented at the Software Engineering Education and Training Track at the International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2005, held in St. Louis, MO, USA in May 2005. The 12 tutorial lectures presented cover software engineering education, state of the art and practice: creativity and rigor, challenges for industries and academia, as well as future directions.

There is convergent consensus among scientists that many social, economic and ?nancial phenomena can be described by a network of agents and their inter- tions. Surprisingly, even though the application ?elds are quite different, those n- works often show a common behaviour. Thus, their topological properties can give useful insights on how the network is structured, which are the most “important” nodes/agents, how the network reacts to new arrivals. Moreover the network, once included into a dynamic context, helps to model many phenomena. Among the t- ics in which topology and dynamics are the essential tools, we will focus on the diffusion of technologies and fads, the rise of industrial districts, the evolution of ?nancial markets, cooperation and competition, information ?ows, centrality and prestige. The volume, including recent contributions to the ?eld of network modelling, is based on the communications presented at NET 2006 (Verbania, Italy) and NET 2007 (Urbino, Italy); offers a wide range of recent advances, both theoretical and methodological, that will interest academics as well as practitioners. Theory and applications are nicely integrated: theoretical papers deal with graph theory, game theory, coalitions, dynamics, consumer behavior, segregation models and new contributions to the above mentioned area. The applications cover a wide range: airline transportation, ?nancial markets, work team organization, labour and credit market.

Donor countries are currently scaling up their aid programmes in response to strategies proposed through the Millennium Development Goals. Recent positive research on the impact of foreign development aid has led to increased expectations on the part of donor countries. Research suggests that per capita income growth over the last decade would have been lower in the absence of aid, and also that public sector expenditure on health and education in developing countries would not have been as great without aid inflows. However, there still remain many significant gaps in knowledge on aid allocation and effectiveness. This book addresses a number of these gaps, and provides many new and important analytical insights into aid. Among the topics covered are the interface between aid allocation and perceptions of aid effectiveness, the inter-recipient concentration of aid from non-government organizations, the year-on-year volatility of aid, impacts of aid on public sector fiscal aggregates, and evaluation of the country-level impacts of aid. The book is an essential companion for professionals engaged in aid policy reforms and also for scholars in the areas of development economics, international finance and economics.

Silicon Valley is the most salient example of high-tech industrial clusters. Public policymakersthroughouttheworldwouldliketolearnthesecretsofSiliconValley in order to build their own high-tech economies. The existing literature on ind- trial clusters, which traces back to Marshall (1920), focuses on the way in which ?rms bene?t from locating in a cluster; it suggests that once a cluster comes into existence, it tends to reinforce itself by attracting more ?rms. However, a more important question is how to reach this critical mass in the ?rst place. In contrast to the literature, evidence suggests that entrepreneurs rarely move when they est- lish high-tech start-ups (Cooper and Folta, 2000). This contradicts the notion that location choice analyses lead entrepreneurs to a high-tech cluster. A high-tech industrial cluster such as Silicon Valley is characterized by c- centratedentrepreneurship. FollowingSchumpeter,weemphasizethefactthat“the appearance of one or a few entrepreneurs facilitates the appearance of others” (Schumpeter,1934). Weproposeanagent-basedcomputationalmodeltoshowhow high-tech industrial clusters could emerge in a landscape in which no ?rms existed originally. The model is essentially a spatial version of the Nelson-Winter model: Boundedly rational agents are scattered over an explicitly de?ned landscape. Each agent is endowed with some technology, which determines his ?rm’s productivity (if he has one). During each period of time, an agent with no ?rm would make a decision as to whether he wants to start one. This decision is mostly affected by the behavior of his social contacts, who are all his neighbors.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the joint International Workshops on Trading Agent Design and Analysis, TADA 2006, and on Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce, AMEC VIII 2006, held in Hakodate, Japan. The papers address a mix of both theoretical and practical issues in trading agent design and technologies, theoretical and empirical evaluation of strategies in complex trading scenarios as well as mechanism design.