Papers by Abigail Devereaux
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
PurposeOur central thesis is that the dynamic, immersive and agile nature of extended reality (XR... more PurposeOur central thesis is that the dynamic, immersive and agile nature of extended reality (XR) both provides an unusually fertile ground for the development of alternative forms of governance and essentially necessitates this development by contrast with relatively inagile institutions of public governance.Design/methodology/approachI take an epistemologically aware, systems-theoretic perspective in my analysis to properly tease out the relevant micro-, meso- and macro-structures; their direct interactions; and their entanglements.FindingsThe challenges presented by rapidly advancing XR may require much more agile forms of governance than are available from public institutions, even under widespread algorithmic governance. Social entrepreneurship in blockchain solutions may very well be able to meet some of these challenges, as we show.Originality/valueThere are very few systems-aware, epistemological analyses of social entrepreneurship utilizing algorithms versus public algorit...
Journal of Institutional Economics
In 2014, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party announced the institution of a social c... more In 2014, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party announced the institution of a social credit system by 2020, a follow-up to a similar statement on the creation of a social credit system issued by the State Council in 2007. Social credit ratings of the type being developed by the State Council in partnership with Chinese companies go beyond existing financial credit ratings in an attempt to project less-tangible personal characteristics like trustworthiness, criminal tendencies, and group loyalty onto a single scale. The emergence of personal credit ratings is enabled by Big Data, automated decision-making processes, machine learning, and facial recognition technology. It is quite likely that various kinds of personal and social credit ratings shall become reality in the near future. We explore China's version of its social credit system so far, compare the welfare and epistemological qualities of an ecology of personal ratings emanating from polycentric sources versus ...
Complex Systems
One-and two-dimensional cellular automata have traditionally modeled systems with an underlying r... more One-and two-dimensional cellular automata have traditionally modeled systems with an underlying regular lattice well. However, for other systems, such as those with nonlocal phenomena, running cellular automata over different topologies could result in a simpler, more natural model. The creation of so-called "outer median" rules, and the use of modified probabilistic rules, make it possible to run cellular automata over network topologies. In this way, the rules themselves remain simple while more complicated nonlocal information is encoded in the topology. In this manner we can model systems with nonlocal elements, and briefly consider two examples of such systems: country border relationships and forest fire spread.
The Review of Austrian Economics
The American Economist
Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) modeling remains the workhorse of contemporary macr... more Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) modeling remains the workhorse of contemporary macroeconomics despite a growing number of critiques of its ability to explain the aggregate properties of an economic system. For the most part, those critiques accept the DSGE presumption that traditional macro data are primitive, causal data. This leads to a stipulative style of analysis where macro variables are explained in terms of one another. In contrast, we set forth an open-ended evolutionary (OEE) framework for an OEE macroeconomics. Within this framework, systems data are not primitive, but are derived from prior microlevel interactions without any presumption that those macrolevel derivations reflect systemic equilibrium among the microlevel primitive sources of action. We explore some contours of an OEE framework by placing coordination games within an ecological setting where there is no agent who has universal knowledge relevant to that ecology of games. JEL Classifications: ...
SSRN Electronic Journal
Augmented reality (AR) is a real-time, interactive user experience that inserts virtual computer-... more Augmented reality (AR) is a real-time, interactive user experience that inserts virtual computer-generated elements into a user's physical environment. I provide examples from existing AR applications and conceptualize how AR strengthens self-organization and enables the emergence of polycentric loci of private governance, or agile selforganization. Examples include information-enhancing overlays, automatic language translation, individualization and privatization of personal and worker safety provision, reduction of emergency response times, and enrichment of education with overlays and holograms. I conclude that AR technologies erode policy rationales for intervention by solving public problems with a greater number of less-costly private solutions.
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Papers by Abigail Devereaux