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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Enhancing Agent-Based Models with Discrete Choice Experiments
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Stefan Holm
  • Renato Lemm
  • Oliver Thees
  • Lorenz Hilty
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Publisher University of Surrey, Department of Sociology
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1460-7425
Volume 19
Number 3
Page Range 3
Date 2016
Abstract Text Agent-based modeling is a promising method to investigate market dynamics, as it allows modeling the behavior of all market participants individually. Integrating empirical data in the agents’ decision model can improve the validity of agent-based models (ABMs). We present an approach of using discrete choice experiments (DCEs) to enhance the empirical foundation of ABMs. The DCE method is based on random utility theory and therefore has the potential to enhance the ABM approach with a well-established economic theory. Our combined approach is applied to a case study of a roundwood market in Switzerland. We conducted DCEs with roundwood suppliers to quantitatively characterize the agents’ decision model. We evaluate our approach using a fitness measure and compare two DCE evaluation methods, latent class analysis and hierarchical Bayes. Additionally, we analyze the influence of the error term of the utility function on the simulation results and present a way to estimate its probability distribution.
Free access at DOI
Digital Object Identifier 10.18564/jasss.3121
Other Identification Number merlin-id:13492
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