Speaker: Dr. Corrado Di Guilmi

Time: 2:00-3:00p.m., 21 Nov 2018 (Wed)

Venue: T2-101

Language: English

Abstract:

Standard macroeconomic modelling is based on classical physics’ reductionism, according to which the evolution of the aggregate system simply reproduces the behavior of its parts. Macroeconomics is then just the sum of the microeconomic components which are the focus of the analysis. 

Alternative views of macroeconomics have stressed the role of the interaction of agents to determine aggregate outcomes. A suitable strategy to model economic processes as dynamic systems of interacting agents is provided by agent-based computational modelling. This approach has been developed in computer science to study complex systems and it is suitable for the study of decentralized markets and out-of-equilibrium dynamics. It has proven able to reproduce many macroeconomic stylized facts and can account for “extreme events” like the Great Recession. 

The recent integration of agent-based modelling with statistical physics can open new and interesting avenues for the study of macroeconomic and financial systems."

About the speaker:

Dr. Corrado Di Guilmi is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Business School of the University of Technology Sydney. He has published several articles in economic and interdisciplinary journals and two books. His research activity is mainly devoted to the theoretical and empirical investigation of the links between financial instability and the business cycle and, in particular, between financial micro-variables and the macroeconomy. His most recent research focuses on the development of analytical solution methods for heterogeneous agents models and their application in Keynesian macroeconomic models of financial fragility.