Individual Contacts, Collective Patterns. Prato 1975-97, a story of interactions.

Fioretti, Guido (2008): Individual Contacts, Collective Patterns. Prato 1975-97, a story of interactions.

Abstract

This article presents an agent-based model (ABM) of an Italian textile district where thousands of small firms specialize in particular phases of fabrics production. It is an empirical model because it reconstructs the communications between firms when they arrange production chains. In their turn, production chains reflect into the pattern of road traffic in the geographical areas where the district extends. It is a methodological model because it aims to show that ABMs can be used to reconstruct a web of movements in geographical space. ABMs are proposed as a tool for Hägerstrand’s “time-geography”.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Industrial districts, Industrial clusters, Agent-based models, Prato
• Subjects: R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location > R30 - General; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C6 - Mathematical Methods ; Programming Models ; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling > C63 - Computational Techniques ; Simulation Modeling; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R4 - Transportation Economics > R49 - Other

References

Fioretti G, 2001, “Information Structure and Behavior of a Textile Industrial District” Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 4, <http:// www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/4/4/1.html>

Fioretti G, 2006, “Agent-Based Models of Industrial Clusters and Districts” in Progress in Economics Research Ed A Tavidze (Nova Science Publishers, New York)