Agent-Based Modelling of Social Networks in Labour–Education Market System PDF
Preview Agent-Based Modelling of Social Networks in Labour–Education Market System
SPRINGER BRIEFS IN COMPLEXITY Alexander Tarvid Agent-Based Modelling of Social Networks in Labour–Education Market System 123 SpringerBriefs in Complexity EditorialBoardforSpringerComplexity H.Abarbanel,SanDiego,USA D.Braha,Dartmouth,USA P.Érdi,Kalamazoo,USAandBudapest,Hungary K.Friston,London,UK H.Haken,Stuttgart,Germany V.Jirsa,Marseille,France J.Kacprzyk,Warsaw,Poland K.Kaneko,Tokyo,Japan S.Kelso,BocaRaton,USA M.Kirkilionis,Coventry,UK J.Kurths,Potsdam,Germany A.Nowak,Warsaw,Poland H.Qudrat-Ullah,Toronto,Canada L.Reichl,Austin,USA P.Schuster,Vienna,Austria F.Schweitzer,Zurich,Switzerland D.Sornette,Zurich,Switzerland S.Thurner,Vienna,Austria SpringerComplexity Springer Complexity is an interdisciplinary program publishing the best research and academic-level teaching on both fundamental and applied aspects of complex systems—cutting across all traditional disciplines of the natural and life sciences, engineering,economics,medicine,neuroscience,socialandcomputerscience. 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Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/8907 Alexander Tarvid Agent-Based Modelling of Social Networks in Labour–Education Market System 123 AlexanderTarvid FacultyofEconomicsandManagement UniversityofLatvia Riga,Latvia RigaBusinessSchool RigaTechnicalUniversity Riga,Latvia ISSN2191-5326 ISSN2191-5334 (electronic) SpringerBriefsinComplexity ISBN978-3-319-26537-7 ISBN978-3-319-26539-1 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-26539-1 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015956179 SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon ©TheAuthor(s)2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation, broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology nowknownorhereafterdeveloped. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthisbook arebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsor theeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforany errorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerlandispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www. springer.com) Preface Most of us would like to have a job that would support both physical well-being through providing enough income and psychological well-being reflected in high satisfaction with life. Unfortunately, not all jobs are like that. A sizeable part of thesocietyconsiderstheirjobsasinappropriatefordifferentreasons,startingfrom severeworkingconditionsandendingwiththeacquirededucationand/orskillsnot beingusedinthejob.Thishasanegativeimpactontheirphysicalandpsychological well-being.Anotherpartofsocietyisnotemployedatall,eitherseekingjoborbeing inactive,whichtypicallydoesn’tmakeone’slifecomfortable. Not only we as individuals are interested in the jobs we find appropriate for ourselves.Whethermostofusareabletofindthemisalsoofrelevancetofirmsand policy-makers. Firms are increasingly caring about the level of job satisfaction of theiremployees,becauseitaffectstheproductivityofthelatterand,ultimately,their decision to stay or quit the job. Policy-makers care about it, because poor quality of employment, meaning large rates of employee–job mismatch, unemployment or inactivity, increases their chances to fail re-elections and lose their jobs and, in extremecases,leadstocivilunrest. Among the most important prerequisites of successful employment are knowl- edge and skills, which come from education and experience. Using the language of economists, the most efficient allocation of individuals across jobs is when the characteristics of the former match those required in the latter. Otherwise, the individual is mismatched by having more or less education and/or skills than the jobrequires.Researchshowedthatworkinginajobwheretheacquirededucation orskillsarenotusedhasconsiderablenegativeeffectsonbothphysicalwell-being (e.g.lowersalariesandslowercareer)andpsychologicalwell-being(e.g.higherrisk ofdepressionandlowerjobsatisfaction). On a macro level, this result brings attention to the coordination between the educationmarketandthelabourmarket.Lackofsuchcoordinationwasrepeatedly noted by many, including the World Economic Forum [296], which classified structuralunemploymentcausedbyeducationandskillsmismatchasaglobalthreat. This coordination may be improved in three ways, depending on which of the twomarketsisviewedasmoreimportantandwhichasthesourceoftheproblem. v vi Preface One way is to blame the education system that is preparing too few graduates in somefieldsofstudyandtoomanyinothers.Thosewhoholdthisviewproposeto restructuretheeducationsystemsothatitproducesonlythegraduatesdemandedby employers[56,128].Anotherwayistoblamethelabourmarket,whichisunableto takeadvantageoftheexistingsupplyofgraduates.Ifthisisthecase,itisproposedto restructurethelabourmarketsothatthecountrybenefitsfromthespecialistsithas [199].Stillanotherwayistotakeabroaderviewandunderstandthereasonsofthe existingimbalances,whichmightwellexistbecauseofmisalignmentofeducation and labour markets. Then these issues should be addressed and the links between thetwomarketsshouldbeimproved[53].Thiswouldleadtobothmarketsworking morecloselytogetherandbeingbetteradaptedtocurrentandfuturedevelopments. Clearly,thisthirdwayappearstobethemostbeneficial. This leads to the necessity of considering the labour market together with the education market as one system or labour–education market system (LEMS). Education-related decisions of individuals affect their labour-market options and outcomes, and labour-market outcomes of individuals affect education-related decisionsofotherindividuals.ThisisthecoreofatypicalLEMSmodel. The idea that education and labour markets should be modelled together is, of course,notnew,andeconomistshavefrequentlyembodiededucationcharacteristics of individuals into labour-market models. Usually, economists use mathematical modellingtechniquesand,hence,havetoignoretheeffectsonindividuals’decisions fromsocialnetworksformathematicaltractability.Atthesametime,thereisavast bodyofempiricalevidenceconfirmingthatsocialnetworksareanimportantsource of information for individuals and influence their decisions in both education and labour markets. Should we really ignore this important element in our models of LEMS?Certainlynotinallcases. Agent-based modelling allows to overcome not only the inability of social network modelling by standard mathematical economics techniques but also other shortcomings of standard economic modelling. This book is about using agent- based simulations to model LEMS with embedded social networks—more con- cretely, individual behaviour in LEMS where individual decisions are affected by socialnetworks. Thebookiswrittenasaguidetousingagent-basedmodellingforthispurpose.It doesnotcontainfullydevelopedmodels—soifyou’reinterestedinsuchexamples, you’ll have to read the relevant articles, and this book references many of them. Rather, it contains a set of proposals on how different aspects of LEMS models should be constructed and an analysis of the approaches to their construction in the available literature. It also does not contain examples of programming code in a concrete agent-based modelling platform—programme listings that are included arewritteninpseudocode,sothatyoucaneasilyimplementtheminyourpreferred platform.Itisalsonotanencyclopaediaonindividualbehaviour(itwouldbemuch thickerifitwere)—butitisacollectionoffactsandanalysesthatyoushouldknow aboutandconsiderwhilebuildingyouragent-basedmodelofLEMS. The book does not require you to be an expert in the field of agent-based modelling, education market, labour market or social networks (even if you are, Preface vii I hope you’ll still find the book useful). I also hope that it will be interesting to a widereadership,tobothundergraduatestudentsandexperiencedresearchers. There are three main chapters in the book. Chapter 1 discusses the facts we know about individual behaviour and the role of social networks in LEMS from empirical literature, also noting theoretical support, where relevant. Then Chap.2 substantiatestheneedtoapplyagent-basedmodellingtostudyingLEMS,discussing the benefits and drawbacks of this modelling method, and provides a step-by-step guide to it. Finally, Chap.3 analyses how three large blocks of LEMS—education market, labour market and social networks—can be constructed in an agent-based model,basedonexistingliteratureandtheempiricalresultsdiscussedinChap.1. Iwishyouapleasantreading. Riga,Latvia AlexanderTarvid Contents 1 SocialNetworksandLabour–EducationMarketSystem ................ 1 1.1 SocialNetworks.......................................................... 1 1.1.1 RequiredMinimumfromtheGraphTheory ................... 2 1.1.2 Creating,MaintainingandDissolvingSocialTies............. 3 1.1.3 StructureofSocialNetworks.................................... 6 1.2 IndividualBehaviourintheEducationMarket......................... 8 1.2.1 IndividualAspects:Ability,SexandPersonality............... 9 1.2.2 Social Environment: Family, Social Class andSocialNetworks............................................. 11 1.2.3 MonetaryCostsandBenefits.................................... 12 1.3 IndividualBehaviourintheLabourMarket ............................ 13 1.3.1 MethodsofJobSearchandRecruitment ....................... 14 1.3.2 Overeducation.................................................... 15 1.3.3 QuittingtheJob.................................................. 19 2 ComplexAdaptiveSystemsandAgent-BasedModelling ................ 23 2.1 WhatIsAgent-BasedModelling?....................................... 23 2.2 WhytoUseAgent-BasedModelling... ................................ 25 2.2.1 ...forModellingComplexAdaptiveSystems? ................ 25 2.2.2 ...IfTraditionalEconomicModellingExists?................. 27 2.2.3 ...IfOtherSimulationMethodsExist?......................... 29 2.3 HowtoDoABM?........................................................ 33 2.3.1 FromGoaltoImplementation................................... 33 2.3.2 ParametrisationandCalibration:SettingParameters .......... 34 2.3.3 Validation:CheckingtheModel ................................ 36 2.3.4 RunningtheModel .............................................. 36 2.3.5 AnalysingOutputandItsSensitivity ........................... 37 2.4 LimitationsofABM ..................................................... 37 ix
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