This book has two components: stochastic dynamics and stochastic random combinatorial analysis. The first discusses evolving patterns of interactions of a large but finite number of agents of several types. Changes of agent types or their choices or decisions over time are formulated as jump Markov processes with suitably specified transition rates: optimisations by agents make these rates generally endogenous. Probabilistic equilibrium selection rules are also discussed, together with the distributions of relative sizes of the bases of attraction. As the number of agents approaches infinity, we recover deterministic macroeconomic relations of more conventional economic models. The second component analyses how agents form clusters of various sizes. This has applications for discussing sizes or shares of markets by various agents which involve some combinatorial analysis patterned after the population genetics literature. These are shown to be relevant to distributions of returns to assets, volatility of returns, and power laws.

This book systematically provides a prospective integrated approach for complexity social science in its view of statistical physics and mathematics, with an impressive collection of the knowledge and expertise of leading researchers from all over the world. The book mainly covers both finitary methods of statistical equilibrium and data-driven analysis by econophysics. The late Professor Masanao Aoki of UCLA, who passed away at the end of July 2018, in his later years dedicated himself to the reconstruction of macroeconomics mainly in terms of statistical physics. Professor Aoki, who was already an IEEE fellow, was also named an Econometric Society Fellow in 1979. Until the early 1990s, however, his contributions were focused on the new developments of a novel algorithm for the time series model and their applications to economic data. Those contributions were undoubtedly equivalent to the Nobel Prize-winning work of Granger's "co-integration method". After the publications of his New Approaches to Macroeconomic Modeling and Modeling Aggregate Behavior and Fluctuations in Economics, both published by Cambridge University Press, in 1996 and 2002, respectively, his contributions rapidly became known and spread throughout the field. In short, these new works challenged econophysicists to develop evolutionary stochastic dynamics, multiple equilibria, and externalities as field effects and revolutionized the stochastic views of interacting agents. In particular, the publication of Reconstructing Macroeconomics, also by Cambridge University Press (2007), in cooperation with Hiroshi Yoshikawa, further sharpened the process of embodying “a perspective from statistical physics and combinatorial stochastic processes” in economic modeling. Interestingly, almost concurrently with Prof. Aoki’s newest development, similar approaches were appearing. Thus, those who were working in the same context around the world at that time came together, exchanging their results during the past decade. In memory of Prof. Aoki, this book has been planned by authors who followed him to present the most advanced outcomes of his heritage.

This book fills the gap between intermediate and advanced graduate level books Contains more pedagogy than is customary for an advanced undergraduate text Explores contemporary theory in macroeconomics including new and endogenous growth theory, real business cycles, New Classical and New Keynesian Macroeconomics as well as the role of exchange rates

This valuable book contributes substantively to the current state-of-the-art of macroeconomics. It provides a method for building models in which business cycles and economic growth emerge from the interactions of a large number of heterogeneous agents. Drawing from recent advances in agent-based computational modeling, the authors show how insights from dispersed fields can be fruitfully combined to improve our understanding of macroeconomic dynamics.

Our answer: Not so well. We reached that conclusion after reviewing recent research on the role of technology as a source of economic fluctuations. The bulk of the evidence suggests a limited role for aggregate technology shocks, pointing instead to demand factors as the main force behind the strong positive comovement between output and labor input measures.

Real Business Cycle theory combines the remains of monetarism with the new classical macroeconomics, and has become one of the dominant approaches within contemporary macroeconomics today. This volume presents: * the authoritative anthology in RBC. The work contains the major articles introducing and extending the theory as well as critical literature * an extensive introduction which contains an expository summary and critical evaluation of RBC theory * comprehensive coverage and balance between seminal papers and extensions; proponents and critics; and theory and empirics. Macroeconomics is a compulsory element in most economics courses, and this book will be an essential guide to one of its major theories.