LABS

LABS (Large Agent Based Simulation) is an agent-based simulation model that maps a “real” economy on a smaller scale. LABS provides a laboratory environment that enables micro-based analysis of economic actions and their macroeconomic consequences.

In LABS, companies, households, banks, and the state autonomously pursue their respective goals. These acting entities – called agents – can learn within the model and adapt their operational rules to new framework conditions. In designing the operational rules, we are guided by the results of corresponding micro-empirical studies, which show that economic actors usually make their decisions using simple heuristics (“rules of thumb”). All economic processes are modelled in LABS on the individual level and the respective state of the overall system results from the interaction of the agents (bottom-up perspective).