Straatman, Bas, Roger White, and Wolfgang Banzhaf. “An Artificial Chemistry-based Model of Economies.” In ALIFE , pp. 592-599. 2008.
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Economies can be modelled using Artificial Chemistry ap-proaches. In this contribution we discuss the development of such a model starting from the well-known von Neumann’s technology matrices. Skills and technologies that allow the transformation of raw materials into products are introduced in a form akin to chemical reactions. The dynamic flow of materials in such a system is simulated and connected through an agent-based market mechanism that assigns value to raw materials, labour, and products. Starting from a fixed set of raw materials, energy and labor, we observe the appearance of new products, the use of consumables and the general in-crease in complexity of such a system. Real evolutionary dy-namics including waves of innovation can be demonstrated.