Simplicity and Complexity in Economic Theory

1. The economic system characterized by the interaction of competitive markets regulated by powerful national governments and local communities is a complex dynamical system. 2. The Walrasian general equilibrium model, which is taught in virtually every PhD-granting economics department in the world, provides the simple structural equations underlying the complex dynamics of the market economy. 3. There is no plausible alternative to this model that can serve as a starting point for analyzing the complex dynamics of market economies. There is not even a suggestion of an alternative structural model, to my knowledge. 4. Until Antoine Mandel and I provided agent-based simulations of general market interaction and provided analytical proofs of stability using evolutionary game theory, there was no acceptable model of complex market dynamics. We showed, however, that complex market dynamics flow from simple structural rules, with a strong tendency for market economies ESIC 2018