Negotiation Lab 1.0 is an agent-based model of peace negotiations that explores how the parties’ readiness — their motivation and optimism to engage in talks — evolves dynamically throughout the negotiation process. The model reconceptualizes readiness as an adaptive state variable that is continuously updated through feedback from negotiation outcomes, rather than a static precondition assessed at the onset of talks.
The model simulates two parties negotiating a multi-issue agenda. In each round, parties allocate effort to the current sub-issue; outcomes depend on their joint effort and a stochastic component representing external factors. Results feed back into each party’s readiness, shaping subsequent engagement. The negotiation ends either when all agenda items are resolved (agreement) or when a party’s readiness falls below a critical threshold (breakdown).
Key parameters include the initial readiness of each party, agenda structure (balanced, hard, easy, red, or random), type of negotiation (from highly cooperative to highly competitive), and each party’s effort strategy (always high, always low, random, or pseudo tit-for-tat). The model shows that while initial readiness is associated with negotiation outcomes, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to determine them: process variables — the type of interaction, agenda design, and adaptive effort strategies — exert comparatively larger effects on outcomes. Identical initial conditions can produce widely divergent trajectories, illustrating path dependence and sensitivity to feedback dynamics.
The model is implemented in NetLogo 7.0 and is documented using the ODD+D protocol. It is associated with the paper “Beyond Initial Conditions: How Adaptive Readiness Shapes Peace Negotiation Outcomes” (Arévalo, under review).

This is an empirically calibrated agent-based model that replicates spruce-budworm outbreaks, one of the most cited adaptive cycles reported. The adaptive-cycle metaphor by L. H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling posits the cross-case existence of repeating cycles of growth, conservation, collapse, and renewal in many complex systems, triggered by loss of resilience. This model is one of the first agent-based models of such cycles, with the novelty that adaptive cycles are not defined by system- […]

A reimplementation of the Wedding Ring model by Francesco Billari. We investigate partnership formation in an agent-based framework, and combine this with statistical demographic projections using real empirical data.

The natural selection of foresight, an accuracy at assess the environment, under degrees of environmental heterogeneity. The model is designed to connect local scale mobility, from foraging, with the global scale phenomenon of population dispersal.

Patagonia PSMED is an agent-based model designed to study a simple case of Evolution of Ethnic Differentiation. It replicates how can hunter-gatherer societies evolve and built cultural identities as a consequence of the way they interacted.

The simulation generates two kinds of agents, whose proposals are generated accordingly to their selfish or selfless behaviour. Then, agents compete in order to increase their portfolio playing the ultimatum game with a random-stranger matching.

The CONSERVAT model evaluates the effect of social influence among farmers in the Lake Naivasha basin (Kenya) on the spatiotemporal diffusion pattern of soil conservation effort levels and the resulting reduction in lake sedimentation.

We develop a spatial, evolutionary model of the endogenous formation and dissolution of groups using a renewable common pool resource. We use this foundation to measure the evolutionary pressures at different organizational levels.

This study investigates a possible nexus between inter-group competition and intra-group cooperation, which may be called “tribalism.” Building upon previous studies demonstrating a relationship between the environment and social relations, the present research incorporates a social-ecological model as a mediating factor connecting both individuals and communities to the environment. Cyclical and non-cyclical fluctuation in a simple, two-resource ecology drive agents to adopt either “go-it-alone” or group-based survival strategies via evolutionary selection. Novelly, this simulation employs a multilevel selection model allowing group-level dynamics to exert downward selective pressures on individuals’ propensity to cooperate within groups. Results suggest that cooperation and inter-group conflict are co-evolved in a triadic relationship with the environment. Resource scarcity increases inter-group competition, especially when resources are clustered as opposed to widely distributed. Moreover, the tactical advantage of cooperation in the securing of clustered resources enhanced selective pressure on cooperation, even if that implies increased individual mortality for the most altruistic warriors. Troubling, these results suggest that extreme weather, possibly as a result of climate change, could exacerbate conflict in sensitive, weather-dependent social-ecologies—especially places like the Horn of Africa where ecologically sensitive economic modalities overlap with high-levels of diversity and the wide-availability of small arms. As well, global development and foreign aid strategists should consider how plans may increase the value of particular locations where community resources are built or aid is distributed, potentially instigating tribal conflict. In sum, these factors, interacting with pre-existing social dynamics dynamics, may heighten inter-ethnic or tribal conflict in pluralistic but otherwise peaceful communities.

For special issue submission in JASSS.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, governments agreed on and accepted CO2 reduction targets in order to counter climate change. In Europe one of the main policy instruments to meet the agreed reduction targets is CO2 emission-trading (CET), which was implemented as of January 2005. In this system, companies active in specific sectors must be in the possession of CO2 emission rights to an amount equal to their CO2 emission. In Europe, electricity generation accounts for one-third of CO2 emissions. Since the power generation sector, has been liberalized, reregulated and privatized in the last decade, around Europe autonomous companies determine the sectors’ CO2 emission. Short-term they adjust their operation, long-term they decide on (dis)investment in power generation facilities and technology selection. An agent-based model is presented to elucidate the effect of CET on the decisions of power companies in an oligopolistic market. Simulations over an extensive scenario-space show that there CET does have an impact. A long-term portfolio shift towards less-CO2 intensive power generation is observed. However, the effect of CET is relatively small and materializes late. The absolute emissions from power generation rise under most scenarios. This corresponds to the dominant character of current capacity expansion planned in the Netherlands (50%) and in Germany (68%), where companies have announced many new coal based power plants. Coal is the most CO2 intensive option available and it seems surprising that even after the introduction of CET these capacity expansion plans indicate a preference for coal. Apparently in power generation the economic effect of CO2 emission-trading is not sufficient to outweigh the economic incentives to choose for coal.