Economic Agent
An Economic Agent is an intelligent agent or entity that performs economic acts within an economic market.
- AKA: Economic Actor, Economic Party, Economic Entity.
- Context:
- They can range from being Significant Economic Agents to Marginal Economic Agents, and from Buyers to Sellers or rentiers.
- ...
- They can have Agent Preferences and use Economic Reasoning to make Economic Judgements (to justify their economic choices).
- They can own Economic Assets, receive Economic Income, and may range from being a low-income agent to a high-income agent.
- They can incur Economic Debts and have Economic Obligations.
- They may operate within various economic sectors such as manufacturing, services, agriculture, and finance, and are subject to economic laws and regulations.
- They can be measured by Economic Health Measures.
- They can impact and be impacted by market forces, economic policies, and global economic conditions, playing a role in the overall economic growth and development of a society or nation.
- They can be part of one or more economic systems, like capitalism, socialism, or a mixed economy.
- They can exhibit behavior ranging from Rational Economic Agent to Irrational Economic Agent.
- They can be associated with a Fiscal Health Score by a fiscal health measure.
- They can own assets, incur liabilities, and engage in economic exchanges with other entities.
- They can operate within various economic sectors, such as manufacturing, services, agriculture, and finance.
- They can be subject to economic laws and regulations that govern its operations and interactions in the market.
- They can impact and be impacted by market forces, economic policies, and global economic conditions.
- ...
- Example(s):
- An Economic Person (with assets).
- An Organization (with assets), such as a local government.
- An AI Trader.
- A corporation producing consumer electronics.
- A government agency providing public services.
- A non-profit organization focused on community development.
- ...
- Counter-Example(s):
- A Non-Economic Agent like a social club that does not engage in economic transactions.
- A Moral Agent or a Hedonistic Agent where acts are not primarily economic.
- A Game Player, where game acts are not economic acts.
- Natural phenomena or ecosystems, which, while they can affect economic conditions, are not considered economic agents or entities themselves.
- See: Rent-Seeking Behavior, Economic Relationship, Profit-Making Behavior, Resource Substitution Effect, Goods and Services, Assets, Liabilities, Economic Sector, Economic Law, Market Force, Economic Policy, Global Economic Condition, Economic Growth, Economic Development, Economic System, Capitalism, Socialism, Mixed Economy.
References
2013
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/#Util
- QUOTE: … An economic agent is, by definition, an entity with preferences. Game theorists, like economists and philosophers studying rational decision-making, describe these by means of an abstract concept called utility.
2012
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_%28economics%29
- In economics, an agent is an actor and decision maker in a model. Typically, every agent makes decisions by solving a well- or ill-defined optimization/choice problem.
For example, buyers and sellers are two common types of agents in partial equilibrium models of a single market. Macroeconomic models, especially dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that are explicitly based on microfoundations, often distinguish households, firms, and governments or central banks as the main types of agents in the economy. Each of these agents may play multiple roles in the economy; households, for example, might act as consumers, as workers, and as voters in the model. Some macroeconomic models distinguish even more types of agents, such as workers and shoppers[1] or commercial banks.[2]
The term agent is also used in relation to principal–agent models; in this case it refers specifically to someone delegated to act on behalf of a principal.[3]
In Agent-based computational economics, the concept of an agent has been more broadly interpreted to be any persistent individual, social, biological, or physical entity interacting with other such entities within the context of a dynamic multi-agent economic system.
- In economics, an agent is an actor and decision maker in a model. Typically, every agent makes decisions by solving a well- or ill-defined optimization/choice problem.
- ↑ Robert Lucas, Jr.,(1980), 'Equilibrium in a pure currency economy'. Economic Inquiry 18 (2), pp. 203-20.
- ↑ Timothy S. Fuerst (1992), 'Liquidity, loanable funds, and real activity'. Journal of Monetary Economics 29 (1), pp. 3-24.
- ↑ Joseph E. Stiglitz (1987). “Principal and agent", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 966-71.
2009
- (Ariely, 2009) ⇒ Dan Ariely. (2009). “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions - revised and expanded edition." Harper-Collins New York. ISBN:978-0-06-135323-9
- QUOTE: Neoclassical economics is built on very strong assumptions that, over time, have become “established facts.” Most famous among these are that all economic agents (consumers, companies, etc., are fully rational, and that the so-called invisible hand works to create market efficiency). To rational economists, these assumptions seem so basic, logical, and self-evident that they do not need any empirical scrutiny.