Abstract for: Integrating Economics and System Dynamics Approaches for Modeling an Ecological-Economic System

This article describes a collaboration between system dynamicists and economists to model a multi-sector, ecological-economic model of population and resource dynamics that is firmly based on economic theory and leverages the strengths of both fields. The example presented shows how an SD approach allows model complexity to be extended so as to effectively model interactions between an economic system and an ecological system. We show how SD model analysis can help explain the counterintuitive model behaviors that result when the natural resource carrying capacity or regeneration rate are increased. Simulation results also indicate that allowing for out-of-equilibrium states (adaptation) has a non-negligible impact on the dynamics of ecological economic systems.