units

ECC3860

Faculty of Business and Economics

18 September 2017 25 November 2024

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This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Monash University

6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Business and Economics

Organisational Unit

Department of Economics

Coordinator(s)

Dr Simon Angus and Dr Brett Parris

Offered

Not offered in 2016

Synopsis

The aim of this unit is to enable students to understand some of the complexities of interdisciplinary policy problems, particularly in the areas of sustainable development, and to enable them to design and undertake integrated modelling exercises for themselves. A complex systems science perspective will be adopted, introducing Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) as a flexible and powerful tool for exploring solutions to complex real-world problems. The ABM approach will be demonstrated and critically assessed through several interdisciplinary, integrated economy/sustainability models. Additionally, a flexible ABM modelling platform (NetLogo) will be introduced and demonstrated.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are for students to:

  1. understand some of the complexities of interdisciplinary policy problems, particularly in the areas of sustainable development
  2. comprehend and critically assess the complex systems perspective
  3. critically evaluate agent-based models and their outputs
  4. develop and analyse an agent-based model of an integrated modelling problem
  5. undertake verification, validation, evaluation and assessment of integrated modelling outputs
  6. apply integrated modelling approaches to real-world interdisciplinary economic problems.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 60%
Examination: 40%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Simon Angus

Prerequisites

Students must have passed ETC1000 before undertaking this unit

Co-requisites

It is recommended that students study ECC2800 Prosperity, poverty and sustainability in a globalised world