Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33728407›Full record

ReviewNature reviews. Physics2021

Foundations of complexity economics.

W Brian Arthur

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Nature reviews. Physics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
25citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

25 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Systemic path to global health 2050.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2026
    Article
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  6. A network model of legal relations.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2024
    Article
  7. Simulating institutional heterogeneity in sustainability science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
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  11. Uncertainty in boundedly rational household adaptation to environmental shocks.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
  12. An impossibility theorem in game dynamics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

W Brian ArthurSanta Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7429-5954

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Conventional, neoclassical economics assumes perfectly rational agents (firms, consumers, investors) who face well-defined problems and arrive at optimal behaviour consistent with - in equilibrium with - the overall outcome caused by this behaviour. This rational, equilibrium system produces an elegant economics, but is restrictive and often unrealistic. Complexity economics relaxes these assumptions. It assumes that agents differ, that they have imperfect information about other agents and must, therefore, try to make sense of the situation they face. Agents explore, react and constantly change their actions and strategies in response to the outcome they mutually create. The resulting outcome may not be in equilibrium and may display patterns and emergent phenomena not visible to equilibrium analysis. The economy becomes something not given and existing but constantly forming from a developing set of actions, strategies and beliefs - something not mechanistic, static, timeless and perfect but organic, always creating itself, alive and full of messy vitality.

Indexed as

Complex networksEngineering

Identifiers

PMID33728407
PMCPMC7844781

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.