COMPutational economics and optimization- Agents, Machines and Artificial intelligence

COMPAMA will explore an emerging interdisciplinary area in the borderland between economics, optimization, psychology, machine learning and AI with the main purpose to understand the economic impact of decisions, made by both machines and human agents. COMPAMA seeks to develop a course program and exchange activities within this area, as well as new ground breaking multidisciplinary research anchored in computational economics and optimization. We will focus on application areas like energy markets, maritime transport, health care planning, and digital economy / finance . The main objective of COMPAMA is to further internationalize and strengthen the methodology of an emerging research area Among the interesting developments in economics the last years, we find on one hand increased focus on behavioural economics and how economic models are affected by human decisions and learning. Agent based modelling and behavioural economics present new opportunities to better represent human behaviour and decision processes into model based analytical frameworks. On the other hand we find machine learning and artifical intelligence (AI), that may affect markets and business models for example through digital platforms and machine based agents participating in these, making it important to also understand decisions in a broader perspective. While these new developments have often been analysed as separate topics, we want through the COMPAMA education and exchange program to explore the interfaces between computational economics, behavioural economics, machine learning and AI. This multidiciplinary approach may open potentially groundbreaking research areas. This is an emerging research area internationally where all these components are not often combined. Still, the linking of these methods are highly relevant in areas like energy markets (producer-consumer perspectives, machine/human interfaces in demand side management) and finance.

COMPAMA is developing an emerging interdisciplinary area in the borderland between economics, optimization, psychology, machine learning and AI with the main purpose to understand the economic impact of decisions, made by both machines and human agents. The point of departure for this project is the internationally recognized research group at NTNU «Computational Economics and Optimization» which was participating in the SAMEVAL evaluation in 2017. COMPAMA seeks to develop a phd course program and exchange activities. This will be done in close collaboration between key competences and professors from each field, initiated through previous and ongoing RCN and EU projects. The SAMEVAL call is an appreciated prerequisite to further methodological strengthening of the area and enables increased international outreach and collaboration. International contacts are core contributors to our new national (and international) phd courses.This will be a mix of ongoing cooperation and new relationships made possible by COMPAMA. These are critical in the collaboration needed for the methodological and conceptual enhancement of the research area that is the focal point of COMPAMA.