The ACEGES project: An ACE Model for the Availability of Global Conventional Oil Supply

I will present a paper at the 16th International Conference on computing in economics and finance. The abstract is given below:

The overall aim of this paper is to present a developing agent-based computational laboratory, termed the ACEGES (Agent-based Computational Economics of the Global Energy System) laboratory, for the systematic experimental study of the global energy system through the mechanism of Energy Scenarios. In particular, our intention is to show how Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) and the Generalized Additive Models for Location Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) can be fused to help us understand better the challenging outlook for conventional oil supply by means of controlled computational experiments.

Specifically, the ACEGES laboratory, which is developed using the MASON (Multi-Agent Simulator Of Networks) library and the R software, models oil production curves to analyse the energy supply tensions at the national level. These production curves are semi-parametric regression models of i) original extractable oil, ii) remaining oil prior to the previous year’s production, iii) previous year cumulative production iv) previous year consumption and v) the net world demand left after an estimated demand increase, which can only be satisfied by Pre-peak Net Producer (PPNP) agent.


These semiparametric regression models are developed using the GAMLSS framework, which allows us to express macrovariables as statistical distributions. GAMLSS is a general framework of regression type of modelling in which the response variable can have a very general (up to four parameters) distribution and all of the parameters of the distributions can be modelled as linear or smooth functions of the explanatory variables. Thus, the R-based GAMLSS tool is used to build oil production curves, which are used as the decision rules of the agents. This also reflects that the R-based GAMLSS tool is integrated with the ACEGES laboratory as a way of providing a methodological advancement to undertake rigorous study of economic systems.