Contact: Stefan KoothsWebsite: www.moterra.de (under construction)
Status: Habilitation thesis
Economic Category: Antitrust-Policy, Theory of Competition
Computational Technology: Decision Support Systems, Soft Computing
Description: MOTERRA is an object-oriented decision support system (DSS) designed to assist human experts in analysing the workability of market processes. It serves as a framework for electronic market studies.
The building blocks of a market study are represented as objects that can interact with the user and with each other allowing for cooperation between human experts and the machine. The aim of the system is not to replace the user but to give assistance in many ways (e.g. by means of completeness and consistency checks). MOTERRA does not resolve contradictory facts but it makes them tranparent and shows the consequences of alternative assumptions.
The core contents of a market study are stored in an SQL database which does not only allow for quick and easy retrieval (within the MOTERRA user interface) but also for machine learning based on the growing experience that evolves when the system is used. Traditionally, experts deliver a heap of paper or a text file when they are asked to give their opinion. These papers are interconnected very poorly (via unidirectional footnotes only), they are difficult to compare and inaccessible for machines and - when the number of studies increases - for human beeings also. Therefore this kind of knowledge representation is considered inadequate. Structured electronic market studies can overcome these problems.
MOTERRA is not restricted to a specific view on how markets may work. However, following the German ordoliberal tradition, one branch of the systems object tree is developed for market analyses on the basis of the Coordination Failure Diagnosis (CFD) concept as suggested by GROSSEKETTLER. This concept combines empirical evidence with theoretical reasonning about whether market processes show a sound process pattern or not. Starting from the null hypothesis of market workability the system cooperates with the user in order to find evidence for the opposite (existence of coordination failures); if it does not succeed the null hypothesis prevails, otherwise political measures to improve the coodination capacity of the market should be taken into consideration (depending on the kind of the detected failure). Therefore MOTERRA can be used for systematic market screenings and serve as a warning system for undesirable trends in the market system.
The implementation of the CFD concept is done for demonstration purposes. If - for one reason or another - this is not what you want, you can add new objects to MOTERRA that help to cover other concepts. The 4-tier-architecture of the software (DBMS,Proxies,Application Logic Tier, User Interface) helps to realize it using the power of object-oriented programming (after the habilitation project phase MOTERRA will be managed as an open source projet). In this way MOTERRA supports a new view on how academic progress and policy consulting should be linked: economists should not only think of new theories but they should also develop the tools for applying them. As a side effect, this assures that economics keep track of real-life problems; furthermore implementing economic theories within objects is a very valuable test for completeness, consistency and applicability for the theories themselves.
Contact: Eric Ringhut, Stefan KoothsWebsite: www.genefer.de
Status: permanent research project
Economic Category: modelling expectations, uncertainty, agent-based computational economics, learning, forecasting (financial) time series
Computational Technology: Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms
Description: GENEFER is a software tool for designing, handling and managing fuzzy-rule-bases. Fuzzy-rule-bases are representations of an economic agent's knowledge and consist of a set of fuzzy-rules such as: "If the inflation differential between Europe and the USA is low, then the rate of appreciation of the Euro will be high." In a world of high complexity with a large number of heterogeneous interacting agents there is a high degree of uncertainty about relevant information and their relation. Additionally agents will constantly try to find better representations of the perceived reality and will therefore experience and learn. GENEFER offers a way of modelling the "mental models" of economic agents that face such an economic environment. But, the example rule contains the fuzzy terms 'low inflation differential' and 'high rate of appreciation' which need to be defined in order to process the rule in a computer. This is done by means of Artificial Intelligence procedures: (i) Fuzzy-Rule-Systems, (2) Artificial Neural Networks and (3) Genetic Algorithms. These procedures can be linked in modular way within the design process of GENEFER. The major advantage of the software is its ability to automatically generate a complete and consistent fuzzy-rule-base on the basis of a numerical database. Nevertheless, the user may influence the software's results in many ways and therefore always keeps control over the output. The software comes with a COM-interface so that it can be linked to any other software applications that is possibly written in another programming language than GENEFER (Object Pascal - Delphi 7.0). It also allows for processing empirical data. The user can import Excel-files and build fuzzy-rule-bases that best describe the relationship between inputs and the user-defined output variable. Using these fuzzy-rule-bases GENEFER is able to generate forecast values for various steps-ahead. Theerfore, it can be regarded as an alternative to econometric procedures.
Contact: Eric Ringhut, Stefan Kooths; in cooperation with atemisStatus: permanent research project
Economic Category: insolvency forecasts, pattern selection, business analysis, learning
Computational Technology: Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms
Description: This project aims at using GENEFER as a fuzzy decision support system for detecting future business insolvencies. To do this the software is trained by a set of real-world data based on balance sheet material to learn the typical pattern of enterprises that show a high potential for failing in the next few years.
Contact: Marcel MlakarStatus: Dissertation thesis
Economic Category: foreign exchange intervention, agent-based computational economics, information and uncertainty
Computational Technology: Simulation
Description: The project is in its infancy, but the goal is to create a software tool for designing a laboratory to analyze foreign exchange interventions. There has been a long and voluminous literature about central bank intervention. Most of the theoretical and empirical analyses find out that intervention has any (or not much) impact on foreign exchange rates. Nevertheless, many monetary authorities intervene in the foreign exchange market. The major motive force of the project is to fill this gap between theory and practice.
The special feature of the laboratory is the consideration of the microstructure approach to exchange rates in combination with multi-agent computer models. The main focus is to prescind from the representative agent. Different market participants (the monetary authority is such a participant as well) which have different expectations about the future exchange rate interact on an artificial foreign exchange market: our laboratory. In spite of this they differ in ways that affect prices. The model also considers that some information relevant to exchange rate is not publicity available. Furthermore the model recognizes the importance of trading mechanisms.
Contact: Marcel Mlakar, Stefan KoothsStatus: part of the Muenster MC-initiative in cooperation with BDV sponsored by FAG
Economic Category: Macroeconomics
Computational Technology: Electronic Tutorial Systems, Multiple Choice
Description: In order to increase efficiency and flexibility of examinations in the macroeconomic foundation courses traditional exams are transformed into electronic ones using the LPlus-shell.
Status: order study by Microsoft Germany in cooperation with IQnomics
Description: The study aims at identifying the economic impact of Microsoft Germany on the activity of German small and medium-sized IT-businesses by means of input-output-analyses, expert panel interviews and an economic analysis of different business models in the software industry