Day 2: Towards Scientific Public Policy Making - Robert Axtell

This conversation starts with an explanation of the Poseidon model, then, moves on to the application of agent-based modeling in public policy,. The speakers discuss challenges and the importance of self-governance, unintended consequences, the role of design thinking in policy-making and the potential of agent-based modeling to address complex societal issues, including heterogenous population and evolution of democracy.

Professor Robert Axtell is a pioneer in the field of Agent Based Modeling. He is a professor at the Department of Computational and Data Science in George Mason University. He has been associated with MIT, Oxford, and the Santa Fe Institute in various capacities.

Professor Parth J Shah is the Founder Dean of the Indian School of Public Policy and Founder-President, Centre for Civil Society. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Auburn University, and has taught at the University of Michigan. He has been a visiting faculty at JNU and has served on the Senates of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

This Discussion is a part of the 1st Agent Based Modeling India Workshop held at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode on the 20th and 21st of March 2025.

00:00 Introduction to Fisheries and Agent-Based Modeling
10:29 The Poseidon Model and Its Applications
14:25 Dealing with bad actors
18:10 ITQs and enforcement in Iceland
20:06 Challenges in Fisheries Management
24:08 Community-Driven Management and ITQs
26:51 ABM as a tool for Public Policy
35:02 Unintended Consequences of Policy decisions
40:35 Modeling Heterogeneity
42:52 Public Policy - a framework beyond government
48:21 Unintended Consequences
52:10 Policy as an amalgam of ideas
55:03 Challenges of Spontaneous Order in Systems
56:10 Democracy and Agent-Based Modeling