Paper 4 - Computative Economics: A Framework for Economic Analysis under Computational Abundance
Wulf A. Kaal · 2026
Five research programs supply the load-bearing propositions of modern economic analysis: general-equilibrium theory, growth theory, behavioural economics, information economics, and the New Institutional Economics. This Article argues that each contains a foundational proposition whose domain contracts when computation makes ideation, evaluation, and coordination abundant. The Arrow-Debreu price system coordinates scarcity. Romer locates growth in the scarce discovery of ideas. Simon treats computation as the constraint on choice. Akerlof treats information asymmetry as a durable market condition. The incomplete-contracts tradition assigns residual control because verification is unavailable. Computative Economics supplies a successor framework for the margins on which those premises no longer bind. Its elements are the computative agent tuple (C, O, M, G, R, E), a recursive equilibrium defined over the update operator rather than a fixed commodity space, and five architectural conditions under which that construction can be implemented. The fixed-point results are conditional propositions. The current implementation does not prove contraction or equilibrium convergence. The empirical record is likewise layered. Published Paper 3 reports the completed discovery and confirmation study. The broader Stage 4 comparison remains registered forward work. Interim Stage 5 records show that state can persist across a generation boundary, that selection can recompose a lineage, and that the resulting trajectory is measurable. The aggregate performance slopes are positive but uncertain and do not establish an advantage over drift. The evidence therefore supports observability and endogenous population transition within an externally provisioned experiment. It does not establish autonomous economic persistence, production performance, or recursive equilibrium. Keywords: Computative Economics, computational abundance, post-scarcity economics, agentic AI, multi-agent systems, recu
Cite: Wulf A. Kaal, Paper 4 - Computative Economics: A Framework for Economic Analysis under Computational Abundance (2026). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=7261481
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