General equilibrium extension of ECI optimization

Develop a game-theoretic or agent-based extension of the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) optimization framework that explicitly accounts for general equilibrium effects when multiple economies optimize simultaneously, modeling interdependencies in decision-making across countries beyond the relative adjustments embedded in Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and ECI.

Background

The paper introduces an optimization method to select diversification opportunities that maximize economic complexity under constraints derived from an economy’s current specialization. While effective, the method optimizes a single economy at a time and does not incorporate general equilibrium effects where multiple economies may act strategically and concurrently.

The authors note that although RCA and ECI are relative measures that partially mitigate simultaneous changes, their framework does not explicitly capture interdependencies among countries’ decisions. They indicate that addressing this limitation would require extending the framework using game-theoretic or agent-based models, an effort they defer to future research.