# The Specification of Sugarscape

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1505.06012 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.06012/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 22 May 2015.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Modelling Opaque Bilateral Market Dynamics in Financial Trading: Insights from a Multi-Agent Simulation Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02849/) (2024)
- [Decoding OTC Government Bond Market Liquidity: An ABM Model for Market Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16331/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.