Testbed for artificial markets

We discuss the testbed that we build for analysing Internet economics. The testbed for artificial markets is the experimental platform which is composed of simulation programs using economic agents. Economic agents are defined as autonomous entities equipped with their own utility functions. Their utility functions are governed by the market mechanism. We describe the competitive interaction model of economic agents. In contrast to fully computerized simulations, gaming simulations have humans who play the role of actors involved in the problem domain. We attempt to analyse the macroscopic properties of collective behavior, especially we discuss the following basic issues: how prepare the architecture of an agent, as a component of a complex society, for evolution; how self-interested behaviors evolve into coordinated behaviors; and how the structure of each goal function can be modified for globally coordinated behaviors. In order to address these issues, we built an agent-based simulation testbed.