We propose using a bi-axial map as a heuristic for categorizing different dynamics involved in the relationship between quality and popularity. The east–west axis represents the degree to which an agent’s decision is influenced by those of other agents. This ranges from the extreme western edge, where an agent learns individually (no outside influence), to the extreme eastern edge, where an agent is influenced by a large number of other agents. The vertical axis represents how easy or difficult it is (...) for an agent to discern the relative quality of available choices. When a case study is located on the map, it becomes easier to select the range of tools to use for understanding and predicting the relation between quality and popularity. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the recent rapid growth of ‘binge’ drinking in the UK. This means the rapid consumption of large amounts of alcohol, especially by young people, leading to serious anti-social and criminal behaviour in urban centres. British soccer fans have often exhibited this kind of behaviour abroad, but it has become widespread amongst young people within Britain itself. Vomiting, collapsing in the street, shouting and chanting loudly, intimidating passers-by and fighting are now regular night-time features of many (...) British towns and cities. A particularly disturbing aspect is the huge rise in drunken and anti-social behaviour amongst young females. Increasingly, policy makers in the West are concerned about how not just to regulate but to alter social behaviour. Smoking and obesity are obvious examples, and in the UK ‘binge’ drinking has become a focus of acute policy concern. We show how a simple agent based model approach, combined with a limited amount of easily acquired information, can provide useful insights for policy makers in the context of behavioural regulation. We show that the hypothesis that the rise in binge drinking is a fashion-related phenomenon, with imitative behaviour spreading across social networks, is sufficient to account for the empirically observed patterns of binge drinking behaviour. The results show that a small world network, rather than a scale-free or random one, offers the best description of the data. (shrink)

, London and City University Business School The core model of orthodox economies does not take proper account of Popper's situational analysis. It follows his injunction to generalize but does not test this against actual historical development. Mathematical tools used with great success in engineering were applied to economics in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. The models constructed with them were intended to be, by their very nature, timeless.

ABSTRACTThe financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen partly because the academic theories that underpin policy making do not sufficiently account for uncertainty and complexity or learned and evolved human capabilities for managing them. Mainstream theories of decision making tend to be strongly normative and based on wishfully unrealistic “idealized” modeling. In order to develop theories of actual decision making under uncertainty, we need new methodologies that account for how human actors often manage uncertain situations “well enough.” Some possibly helpful methodologies, (...) drawing on digital science, focus on the role of emotions in determining people's choices; others examine how people construct narratives that enable them to act; still others combine qualitative with quantitative data. (shrink)