Norm emergence in multiagent systems: a viewpoint paper

Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agents. They can be established or revised from the top-down (authority) or from the bottom-up (populace). The study of norm creation from the bottom-up—or norm emergence/convergence—shows evidence of increasing activity. In consequence, we seek to analyse and categorize the approaches proposed in the literature for facilitating norm emergence. This paper makes three contributions to the study of norm emergence. Firstly, we present the different perspectives of norms and their impact on the norm emergence process, with the aim of comparing their similarities and differences in implementing the norm life cycle. Secondly, we identify the characteristics that support norm emergence that are observed in the emergence literature. Finally, we identify and propose future topics for study for the community, through a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in norm emergence.

Elementary Economic Systems in Material Agent Societies

This paper formally characterizes the elementary economic systems of material agent societies, on the bases of the notions of (individual and group) elementary economic behavior, elementary economic exchange and elementary economic process. The equilibrium of an elementary economic system is defined in terms of the equilibrium of the set of group elementary economic processes that constitute such system. A case study illustrates the proposed concepts.