Research
Analytical Approximation of the Results of Schelling’s Checkerboard Model
Author:
Daniel Matthias Mayerhoffer
University of Bayreuth, DE
About Daniel Matthias
The author thanks the Elite Network of Bavaria for financial support for programming the simulating model used to obtain the benchmark results for this paper.
Daniel Mayerhoffer was a BA student in Philosophy & Economics (2011-2015). He just graduated, and is going on to continue his studies in Computational Social Modelling. In this field, he hopes to continue research in the future.
Abstract
Thomas Schelling shows in his checkerboard model that even mildly segregationist preferences of the single agents are sufficient to bring about high rates of segregation. This paper analytically investigates the model. Taking advantage of the knowledge about the agents’ preferences, a notion of available neighbourhood compositions (those fulfilling an agent’s preferences) is developed. The unweighted average segregation of those available neighbourhoods allows a reasonable approximation of the simulation results, which overrates the actual final rate of segregation instead of underrating it as done intuitively. Additionally, the concept of neighbourhood compositions possibly serves as explanations for the behaviour of the simulation.
How to Cite:
Mayerhoffer, D.M., 2015. Analytical Approximation of the Results of Schelling’s Checkerboard Model. Rerum Causae, 7(1), pp.16–28.
Published on
01 Jan 2015.
Peer Reviewed
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