Strategies for the Study of Complex Socio-Economic Systems: an Approach Using Agent-Based Simulation

Abstract

The present paper proposes a research strategy that integrates top-down and bottom-up approaches, aimed at the study of complex socio-economic systems. Through a theoretical analysis, it is demonstrated throughout the text a strategy that allows the articulation between agent-based simulation approaches and methods of deductive and phenomenological basis capable of providing social sciences with unprecedented accuracy due to ethical and methodological limitations imposed by the study object until then. This is because this type of hybrid approach allows the construction of a deep systemic articulation between the micro and the macro, as advocated by the General Theory of Systems, at the same time as it is supported by systematic experiments that give new light to the study of the socio-economic complexity.