This Element is about agent-based macroeconomics in general, and in particular about a family of evolutionary, agent-based models (ABMs), which are called 'Schumpeter meeting Keynes' (or K+S). The K+S models knit together 'Schumpeterian' endogenous processes of innovation with 'Keynesian' mechanisms of demand generation. As with all well-constructed ABMs, the K+S models are populated by a multiplicity of agents which interact on the grounds of quite simple, empirically based, behavioural rules, whose collective outcomes are 'emergent properties' which cannot be imputed to the intention of any single agent. After the K+S model is empirically validated, the impacts of different combinations of innovation, industrial, fiscal, and monetary policies for different labour-market regimes and inequality scenarios are assessed. The Element offers a new perspective on macroeconomics considering the economy as a complex evolving system.

This introductory overview explores the methods, models and interdisciplinary links of artificial economics, a new way of doing economics in which the interactions of artificial economic agents are computationally simulated to study their individual and group behavior patterns. Conceptually and intuitively, and with simple examples, Mercado addresses the differences between the basic assumptions and methods of artificial economics and those of mainstream economics. He goes on to explore various disciplines from which the concepts and methods of artificial economics originate; for example cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, evolutionary science and complexity science. Introductory discussions on several controversial issues are offered, such as the application of the concepts of evolution and complexity in economics and the relationship between artificial intelligence and the philosophies of mind. This is one of the first books to fully address artificial economics, emphasizing its interdisciplinary links and presenting in a balanced way its occasionally controversial aspects.