SEAL's operating manual: a Spatially-bounded Economic Agent-based Lab
It provides a novel simulation tool for policymakers and researchers to analyze spatially explicit economic policies, but the contribution is primarily a framework description without empirical validation or performance numbers.
This paper presents SEAL, a spatially-bounded economic agent-based modeling framework for simulating economies with microeconomic agents and government institutions, designed for public policy analysis in public finance, taxes, and real estate. It serves as an operating manual for users.
This text reports in detail how SEAL, a modeling framework for the economy based on individual agents and firms, works. Thus, it aims to be an usage manual for those wishing to use SEAL or SEAL's results. As a reference work, theoretical and research studies are only cited. SEAL is thought as a Lab that enables the simulation of the economy with spatially bounded microeconomic-based computational agents. Part of the novelty of SEAL comes from the possibility of simulating the economy in space and the instantiation of different public offices, i.e. government institutions, with embedded markets and actual data. SEAL is designed for Public Policy analysis, specifically those related to Public Finance, Taxes and Real Estate.