A Multiagent Game Theoretic Simulation of Public Policy Coordination through Collaboration

Abstract

Background: Policy coordination is necessary to address many of the sustainability challenges we face today. The formal representations of policy coordination focus on modeling conflict management but neglect its collaborative nature. This limits efforts to build more realistic models of policy coordination. The objective of this paper is to simulate collaboration and noncollaboration between agents in the context of policy coordination in order to determine the effect of different approaches to policy coordination. Methods: For this purpose, a multiagent simulation of collaboration based on evolutionary game theory is used. Results: The results suggest that policy coordination through collaboration produces the most desirable outcomes and that reducing the cost of communication between agents is necessary to increase the probability of collaboration. Conclusions: The cost of information (both its transmission and transformation) is critical to increase the probability of collaboration in policy coordination. This paper advances the understanding of how to model the collaborative nature of policy coordination by contributing to the methodological standardization of the analysis and implementation of public policy coordination.