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Are We Flying the Economy by the Seat of Our Pants?

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Are We Flying the Economy by the Seat of Our Pants? Update July/August 2010 RESEARCH NEWS IN THIS ISSUE > Lit Bits 2 Grant furthers research on science of cities, companies > Awards and appointments 2 > Coordinated punishment 2 > Interacting networks 2 > Phone diversity 2 > New Omidyar Fellows 3 > New postdoctoral fellows 3 > 2nd SFI Miller Scholar arrives 3 > Chisholm new SFI trustee 3 > Board and faculty appointments 3 > Discussions of conflict 4 > Summer public lectures 4 > SFI In the News 4 RESEARCH NEWS Why we fight: Explaining conflict Three SFI researchers have developed a new way to examine the criteria we use to decide whether to fight. Quantitative studies of conflict traditionally rely on game theory, which seeks to find strategies that maximize payoffs for individu- als making decisions in uncertain conditions. Although game theory has been useful for Tokyo at night (Image: istockphoto.com/George Clerk) determining which of a predefined set of strategies – for example, “tit for tat” – will be The Rockefeller Foundation has awarded an and crime, increase with city size. institutions past and present, from hunter- advantageous to the players given certain SFI research team a $230,000 grant to de- gatherer groups and ancient cities to high-tech assumptions, it has not proven as useful for velop their studies of the quantitative proper- A team led by SFI Distinguished Professor companies and online societies. The work also determining what the natural strategy set is, ties and behavior of cities and companies. Geoffrey West is continuing the Institute’s might suggest policies to make institutions and or which strategies individuals are using when efforts to describe and explain these scaling communities more robust and sustainable in conditions are in flux. The work builds on earlier research by SFI patterns. The researchers are investigating the face of climate change, population growth, > more on page 4 External Professor Luis Bettencourt and his why some cities outperform others of the same and other challenges. colleagues that found that cities change in size and extending their studies to companies RESEARCH NEWS predictable ways as they grow. Per capita – which, as the team is beginning to show, As a first step towards such a project, the figures for infrastructure, such as miles of also have properties that scale predictably Institute is holding a meeting in Bellagio, Italy, roads and electrical cable, decrease as cities as companies grow. Geoffrey hopes the in July to bring together researchers from a Reckoning with get larger, for example, whereas figures related Rockefeller support will lead to a conceptual number of fields who are working on various to social productivity, such as income, patents, umbrella for a wide range of research into aspects of urban life. Q multiple reasoners Managing such complex systems as the stock market or a battlefield is particularly challenging because each agent in the system chooses how RESEARCH NEWS to behave, not only by following the rules of the game but also by predicting how all the other agents around them will behave and adjusting Are we flying the economy by the seat of our pants? their own actions accordingly. Presumably our elected officials are using equilibrium models, the other “Decentralized Control in a System of Strategic sophisticated models to manage the economy, kind of traditional model, start by Actors,” an August 16-18 workshop at SFI, right? assuming a perfect, static world will draw on experts from a number of fields to in which crises don’t happen. explore ways to manage multiple-player systems. Wrong. The problem is they don’t have reliable models to turn to. Instead, they in large part draw Agent-based models avoid “The agents in the system are all using ‘I on common sense and loose analogies with past these pitfalls because they don’t know what you know what I know’ kinds crises, says SFI Professor Doyne Farmer. “The make assumptions about how of reasoning, and we have to try to control leaders of the world are flying the economy by the whole economy behaves, behavior starting from that,” says NASA senior the seat of their pants,” he says. instead building that behavior computer scientist David Wolpert, who is from the actions of individual collaborating with SFI Professor Eric Smith to Doyne and SFI External Professor Rob Axtell of actors. “It’ll be a huge undertak- organize the conference. George Mason University say they have a better ing,” Doyne says, “but the stakes way. They want to build an agent-based model of are enormous.” Creating something that can take so many fac- the entire US economy. tors into account with as little error as possible Doyne and Rob convened a is a worthwhile undertaking. Beyond the stock Traditional econometric models use past data late-June NSF-sponsored market, he says, it could have broad uses for the to forecast future trends, so they fall far short conference on the topic in management of complex systems like the power when facing an unprecedented crisis. General Washington, D.C. Q (Image: istockphoto.com/Alex Nikada) grid, air traffic, and national economies. Q LIT BITS Mapping the similarity space of paintings: Image Specialization can drive the evolution of modular- Kass, R.E.; Journal of the American Statistical K.S.; Cooperation and Conflict 45 (1), March statistics and visual perception; Graham, D.J.; ity; Espinosa-Soto, C.; Andreas Wagner; PLOS Association 105 (489), March 2010 2010 Friedenberg, J.D.; Dan Rockmore; Field, D.J.; Computational Biology 6 (3), March 2010 Visual Cognition 18 (4), 2010 Measurement invariance, entropy, and probability; The primary transcriptome of the major human Mosaic vaccines elicit CD8(+) T lymphocyte Steven Frank; D. Eric Smith; Entropy 12 (3), pathogen Helicobacter pylori; Sharma, C.M.; Biological stoichiometry of plant production: responses that confer enhanced immune cover- March 2010 Hoffmann, S.; Darfeuille, F.; Reignier, J.; Findeiss, Metabolism, scaling, and ecological response to age of diverse HIV strains in monkeys; Santra, S.; S.; Sittka, A.; Chabas, S.; Reiche, K.; Hacker- global change; Elser, J.J.; Fagan, W.F.; Kerkhoff, Liao, H.X.; Zhang, R.J.; Muldoon, M.; Watson, Generalization of symmetric alpha-stable muller, J.; Reinhardt, R.; Peter Stadler; Vogel, J.; A.J.; Swenson, N.G.; Brian Enquist; New S.; Fischer, W.; Theiler, J.; Szinger, J.; Balachan- Leacutevy distributions for q > 1; Umarov, S.; Nature 464 (7286), March 11, 2010 Phytologist 186 (3), 2010 dran, H.; Buzby, A.; Quinn, D.; Parks, R.J.; Tsao, Constantino Tsallis; Murray Gell-Mann; C.Y.; Carville, A.; Mansfield, K.G.; Pavlakis, G.N.; Steinberg, S.; Journal of Mathematical Physics Physics and complexity; David Sherrington; Record-breaking earthquake intervals in a global Felber, B.K.; Haynes, B.F.; Bette Korber; Letvin, 51 (3), March 2010 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A catalogue and an aftershock sequence; Yoder, N.L.; Nature Medicine 16 (3), March 2010 – Mathematical Physical & Engineering Sciences M.R.; Turcotte, D.L.; John Rundle; Nonlinear Finding conjugate stabilizer subgroups in 368 (1914), March 13, 2010 Processes in Geophysics 17 (2), 2010 Reply to Adams: Multi-dimensional edge inference PSL(2; q) and related groups; Denney, A.; Cris (letter); Nathan Eagle; Aaron Clauset; Pentland, Moore; Russell, A.; Quantum Information & Com- Identifying the roles of race-based choice and On nestedness in ecological networks; Joppa, A.; Lazer, D.; Proceedings of the National Acad- putation 10 (3-4), March 2010 chance in high school friendship network forma- L.N.; Montoya, J.M.; Ricard Solé; Sanderson, J.; emy of Sciences 107 (9), March 2010 tion; Currarini, S.; Matthew Jackson; Pin, P.; Pimm, S.L.; Evolutionary Ecology Research 12 The strategic calculus of terrorism: Substitution Proceedings of the National Academy of (1), January 2010 Approximate methods for state-space models; and competition in the Israel-Palestine conflict; Sciences 107 (11), March 16, 2010 Koyama, S.; Perez-Bolde, L.C.; Cosma Shalizi; Aaron Clauset; Heger, L.; Young, M.; Gleditsch, PEOPLE RESEARCH NEWS RESEARCH NEWS Awards & honors Coordinated punishment benefits us all Workshop examines SFI External Professor Simon Ganging up on slackers Levin, Moffett Professor of is good for the group. surprising results of Biology at Princeton Univer- That’s the conclusion, in sity, has received the Eminent part, of a recent study interacting networks Ecologist Award for 2010 by SFI External Profes- When you think about it, a package’s arrival from the Ecological Society sors Robert Boyd (an on your front porch is no simple matter. of America, ESA’s top award. anthropologist at UCLA) and Herb Gintis (an SFI Professor Libby Wood, Your click on the World Wide Web (a economist at Central network) passed through the physical a political science professor European University), at Yale University, has been internet (a network) that is powered by the and SFI Professor Sam power grid (a network), which itself relies named a Fellow of the Ameri- Bowles. can Academy of Arts and Sci- on its own private communications network. ences (www.amacad.org). Finally, your package traveled through the Humans are a coopera- postal network to come to your door. tive species. In even the Archaeologist and historian simplest societies, unre- Sander van der Leeuw, an Punishment of the thefts at Masaniello’s time. Painting by Micco Spadaro. Had any of these networks broken down, lated people cooperate SFI external professor, has (Image: Wiki Commons) your delivery could never have happened. in large groups. But been appointed dean of every group has its mooches – those who take (University of Southern California) and Polly Arizona State University’s “We depend on interacting networks every advantage of the cooperation of others and do Wiessner (University of Utah) – frequent School of Sustainability, part day, and we’re hugely susceptible if they nothing. Every group also has those individuals participants in SFI’s Behavioral Sciences of ASU’s new Global Institute fail,” says SFI External Professor Raissa who are happy to punish free loaders by shun- Program – shows that in foraging societies of Sustainability.
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