BEHAVIOURAL COMPLEXITY

The paper compares and contrasts complexity economics and neoclassical economics. It proposes a framework for modelling complex systems and, accordingly, utilizes agent‐based simulation to examine consumption behaviour in a complex model and in a neoclassical model. Results suggest that complex behaviour leads to higher accumulation of wealth, better efficiency and greater stability. These results are consistent with the nature of complex systems whereby ‘the whole is greater than the sum’, and where unexpected system properties emerge from simple local interactions.