IMPROVING POLICY CHOICES THROUGH SIMULATION

Policies which change large-scale social behavior patterns are often implemented on the basis of likely short-term results with little consideration of their long-term consequences. Actions which change social behaviors can originate with governments, social policy groups, or business leaders. When large segments of society adjust their behaviors in similar ways, long-term effects of these changes can have profound effects on social structure. For example, as automobile use in some regions increased, public transit systems frequently collapsed. This consequence of a large-scale behavioral change was never subjected to \a priori analysis. This paper proposes methods of analysis which could be used to examine potential second-order effects of policy choices before the choices are implemented.