Sergei Parinov, parinov@ieie.nsc.ru
http://www.ieie.nsc.ru/~parinov/
Institute of Economics & IE SB RAS
July 1999
Note: 1) My native language is Russian so I will be very
thankful for your linguistic comments that can help me to make
this text better. Please send me back (parinov@ieie.nsc.ru) all
unclear sentences with your comments.
2) Sorry, in this version of the text some quotations from
English papers can differ a little from the original by its back
translation from Russian.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Institutional
Picture of Economic Interactions
2. Theoretical
limits of information interactions in economic space
3. Spatial
boundaries of information interactions between agents
4. General
pattern of information interactions beyond theoretical limits
5. Scheme of
Information Interactions: Causes and Motives of Interactions
6. Scheme of
Information Interactions: The Main Blocks
6.1. Interaction space
6.2. Macro-technology
6.3. Mental model
6.4. Collective information model of the environment
6.5. Organizational mechanism
6.7. Material and information sub-spaces of interactions
7. General picture of
economic system functioning through information interactions
8. Economy as a
complex system of agents with information interactions
Conclusion
References
Abstract:
What kind of information interactions among agents makes possible a functioning of socio-economic systems? What theory do we need to describe the fundamental principles of agents' information interactions? What is the model to simulate functioning of networked economy arisen in Information Society? How we should organize artificial environments where our "intelligent information agents" will interact with each other to help us in our online communications inside numerous human communities? The main purpose of this article is to suggest answers on these questions. Following statements are discussed in the article:
Rapid development of Information Society and its Networked Economy attracts attention to the role of information interactions in functioning of social systems. Information interactions are the more fundamental level to describe a functioning of a social and economic system then market or hierarchical interactions. Central element of agents' information interactions is "collective information model" of their environment. There are some limits on information interactions related with parameters of economic system. Institutional structures are able to channel information interactions beyond the limits. Market and hierarchical interactions are just special cases of such channels. Simplest model of economic system functioning with information interactions includes five types of objects (macro-technology, information space, institutional structures, collective information models, and human actors).
What kind of information interactions among agents makes possible a functioning of socio-economic systems? What theory do we need to describe the fundamental principles of agents' information interactions? What is the model to simulate functioning of networked economy arisen in Information Society? How we should organize artificial environments where our "intelligent information agents" will interact with each other to help us in our online communications inside numerous human communities?
The main purpose of this article is to suggest answers on these questions. Practically we need to learn the basic principles of organizing of information interactions in real networked forms of organization and in artificial systems like community of negotiated and collaborated information robots, software agents and so on. It is important for better realization of at least two tasks of modern social progress: a)Development of Information Society and its "networked economy" for higher living conditions; b)Development of the Internet technologies for more efficient cooperative work.
There are a lot of publications discussed modern changes in an economy related with Internet technology development. The modern (or near future) state of economy has several names: "New Economy" (Stephen B. Shepard), "Next Economy" (J. Bradford De Long, A. Michael Froomkin), "Hi-Tech Gift Economy" (Richard Barbrook), "Attention Economy" (Michael H. Goldhaber), "Network Economy" (Kevin Kelly), and at last "Networked Economy" (see Status Report on European Telework). There is also a whole "Encyclopedia of the New Economy" (http://www.hotwired.com/special/ene/). One of the most interesting features of these modern changes is that people get a principally new global environment for their interactions. So now actors can actually move their social, economic and so on interactions to the new environment, but social scientists know very few about mechanisms of interactions in socio-economic systems (Alan Kirman).
The problem is that research of socio-economic interactions based on market or hierarchical models of the system and so the human interactions look like commodity exchanges or principal-agent relations (S. Parinov). What about a picture of the economy based on pure information interactions?
In this article we propose a theoretical concept and a skeleton of agent-based model of economic system functioning with information interactions between agents. This concept could be useful not only in better understanding of Information Society and its networked economy development, but also for designing of artificial systems of interactive entities living into Internet technology environment. Such artificial systems, for example, are the next step of moving recent business infrastructure to the "e-business" (Business and the Internet Survey. The Economist, June 26th 1999) where some part of interactions business-to-business and business-to-customer serves by information robots and software agents (see as a sample Arie Segev, Carrie Beam).
In the first section of the article we reinterpreted institutional economics statements on interactions among economic agents as a start point of our analysis. The second section discusses theoretical limits on information interactions related with level of ICT development and intensity of changes of an economic system. Third section concludes that three types of information interactions (strong, medium and weak) of single agent with others exist and it could be roughly corresponded with interactions in small group, hierarchical organization and in a market. Fourth section shows how theoretical limits of information interactions can be overcame by using of institutional structures. In the fifth and sixth section propose a scheme of information interactions between agents. Seventh section shows an idea of general picture of economic system functioning through information interactions between agents. Eighth section makes a first step to a computer model of an economic system based on our methodology.
Next section - 1. Institutional Picture of Economic Interactions