The use of agent-based modelling allows to analyse macroeconomic behaviour as an outcome of heterogeneous micro behaviour and interactions.
As such, it is possible to disentangle and investigate the mechanisms that undergo economic phenomena. We propose a contribution to the workshop - and the overall project - along three different complementary lines (to be combined with empirical research):
· analyse and study industrialisation and development processes through agent-based simulation models;
· propose a methodological interpretation for the use of simulation models in economic analysis, with particular reference to growth and development issues;
· propose a modelling tool that eases the use of simulations for economists with no computer programming skills.
First we discuss methodological aspects of producing rigorous results in Economics. We have tried to finalize the methodological results into a software tool facilitating a \sound" use of simulations, as we describe it. We also describe in the first section the main features of this software, called LSD, as it may be a valuable instrument even to people not fully agreeing on the motivations of its development. Along the traced methodological lines, and using LSD, we implement a number of agent based-models, to study micro-to-macro relations. We implement them within a firm based input-output framework. We propose to use the simulation model as a laboratory to study the conditions that generate structural shifts in economic systems, with particular attention to the relation between the interaction dynamics of heterogeneous actors and the emergent properties they generate. A primary feature of the tool is its flexibility and modularity. It can be used to describe different developing scenarios, as well as to increase the micro specification, or focus on any of the model components or emerging results (micro, meso and macro). Some examples are thus presented and briefly discussed.