Resources

Recommended readings on agent-based modeling

• Axelrod, Robert. 1997. The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

• Casti, John L. 1997. Would-Be Worlds: How Simulation Is Changing the Frontiers of Science. New York: Wiley.

• Cederman, Lars-Erik. 1997. Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

• Epstein, Joshua M. and Robert Axtell. 1996. Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science From the Bottom Up. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

• Holland, John H. 1995. Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Recommended web pages on complexity and computational modeling

• The Santa Fe Institute, the “Mecca of complexity studies”: http://www.santafe.edu/

• The Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan: http://www.pscs.umich.edu/ See especially Rick Riolo’s home page: http://www.pscs.umich.edu/PEOPLE/rlr-home.html for details on agent-based modeling, and Robert Axelrod’s page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/ for general references to complexity.

• The Center on Social and Economic Dynamics, Brookings Institution: http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/ES/dynamics/models/

• The European web sites on “Computer simulation of societies” http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/research/simsoc/ and the “European Social Simulation Association” http://essa.cfpm.org/ offer interesting links.

• Leigh Tesfatsios provides a comprehensive web page on computational economics:
  http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace.htm

• See also the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html
  and the Journal for Computational and Mathematical Theory (CMOT)
  http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1381-298X (from where PDF files can be downloaded)

Java resources

We will rely extensively on the following textbook, which offers the best introduction for those who already have previous programming experience, especially in C and C++:

• Eckel, Bruce. 2003. Thinking in Java. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  See also http://www.mindview.net/

Alternatively, a very good introduction to Java programming for beginners is:

• Schildt, Herbert. 2001. Java2: A Beginner’s Guide. Osborne McGraw Hill.

• The RePast web page contains free software and documentation: http://repast.sourceforge.net

• See also Sun’s “New to Java Programming Center”:
  http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/new2java/
  and their Java Tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html