Two-Population Social Cycle Theories

Abstract

Discerning family resemblances in the world of theories can be useful for several reasons. For one thing, noticing that two theories share the traits of a family of theories may help us to understand each of them better. Secondly, noticing the family resemblances may help us to model them more easily. In this paper, we note the large family of two-population social cycle theories, all based on a pattern of disruptions and adjustments. We show that agent based modeling using modern object-oriented programming techniques may benefit from finding such family resemblances.

Keywords: social cycle theory, agent-based modeling

JEL Classification: A12, B31, B41, E32