Citing this article

A standard form of citation of this article is:

Boero, Riccardo and Squazzoni, Flaminio (2005). 'Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science'. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 8(4)6 <https://www.jasss.org/8/4/6.html>.

The following can be copied and pasted into a Bibtex bibliography file, for use with the LaTeX text processor:

@article{boero2005,
title = \{Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science},
author = \{Boero, Riccardo and Squazzoni, Flaminio},
journal = \{Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation},
ISSN = \{1460-7425},
volume = \{8},
number = \{4},
pages = \{6},
year = \{2005},
URL = \{https://www.jasss.org/8/4/6.html},
keywords = \{Agent-Based Models, Empirical Calibration and Validation, Taxanomy of Models},
abstract = \{The paper deals with the use of empirical data in social science agent-based models. Agent-based models are too often viewed just as highly abstract thought experiments conducted in artificial worlds, in which the purpose is to generate and not to test theoretical hypotheses in an empirical way. On the contrary, they should be viewed as models that need to be embedded into empirical data both to allow the calibration and the validation of their findings. As a consequence, the search for strategies to find and extract data from reality, and integrate agent-based models with other traditional empirical social science methods, such as qualitative, quantitative, experimental and participatory methods, becomes a fundamental step of the modelling process. The paper argues that the characteristics of the empirical target matter. According to characteristics of the target, ABMs can be differentiated into case-based models, typifications and theoretical abstractions. These differences pose different challenges for empirical data gathering, and imply the use of different validation strategies.},
}

The following can be copied and pasted into a text file, which can then be imported into a reference database that supports imports using the RIS format, such as Reference Manager and EndNote.


TY - JOUR
TI - Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science
AU - Boero, Riccardo
AU - Squazzoni, Flaminio
Y1 - 2005/10/31
JO - Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
SN - 1460-7425
VL - 8
IS - 4
SP - 6
UR - https://www.jasss.org/8/4/6.html
KW - Agent-Based Models
KW - Empirical Calibration and Validation
KW - Taxanomy of Models
N2 - The paper deals with the use of empirical data in social science agent-based models. Agent-based models are too often viewed just as highly abstract thought experiments conducted in artificial worlds, in which the purpose is to generate and not to test theoretical hypotheses in an empirical way. On the contrary, they should be viewed as models that need to be embedded into empirical data both to allow the calibration and the validation of their findings. As a consequence, the search for strategies to find and extract data from reality, and integrate agent-based models with other traditional empirical social science methods, such as qualitative, quantitative, experimental and participatory methods, becomes a fundamental step of the modelling process. The paper argues that the characteristics of the empirical target matter. According to characteristics of the target, ABMs can be differentiated into case-based models, typifications and theoretical abstractions. These differences pose different challenges for empirical data gathering, and imply the use of different validation strategies.
ER -