Using Genetic Algorithms to Model the Evolution of Heterogeneous Beliefs

  • Authors:
  • James Bullard;John Duffy

  • Affiliations:
  • Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, P.O. Box 442, St. Louis, MO 63166, U.S.A. Tel.: (314) 444-8576/ Fax: (314) 444-8731/ bullard@stls.frb.org;Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, U.S.A. Tel.: (412) 648-1733/ Fax: (412) 648-1793/ jduffy+@pitt.edu

  • Venue:
  • Computational Economics
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

We study a general equilibrium system where agents haveheterogeneous beliefs concerning realizations of possible outcomes.The actual outcomes feed back into beliefs thus creating acomplicated nonlinear system. Beliefs are updated via a geneticalgorithm learning process which we interpret as representingcommunication among agents in the economy. We are able toillustrate a simple principle: genetic algorithms can beimplemented so that they represent pure learning effects (i.e.,beliefs updating based on realizations of endogenous variables inan environment with heterogeneous beliefs). Agents optimally solvetheir maximization problem at each date given their beliefs at eachdate. We report the results of a set of computational experimentsin which we find that our population of artificial adaptive agentsis usually able to coordinate their beliefs so as to achieve thePareto superior rational expectations equilibrium of the model.