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The Virtual Special Issue "Agents for Theory" discusses theory development using agent-based models (ABMs). The six contributions focus on how the word "theory" is used in the ABM literature, how reviews of ABMs should be conducted to gain general insights, how even the conceptualisation of ABMs can help to transform heuristic theories into scientific ones, how the context-dependent choice of decision models can be better justified, how reusable building blocks (RBBs) of ABMs could support theory development, and how a modular framework of RBBs can be used to identify general solutions. Overall, theories of decision making that go into ABMs and theories of system dynamics that come out of ABMs are interrelated, so the micro-macro perspective and the attempt to identify and reproduce patterns at both levels simultaneously is a way forward. Theory development requires clearer communication using a common language, reference to patterns, and more detailed model analysis and testing.
Grimm et al. (Tue,) studied this question.