Eco3S: Complex Socio-Economic System Simulation via Agent-Based Models
This work addresses the limitations of current large language model–driven agent-based modeling, which struggles to capture dynamically evolving agent–environment interactions, lacks counterfactual reasoning capabilities, and offers insufficient automation for scientific inquiry. To overcome these challenges, the authors propose a high-fidelity simulation framework tailored for socio-economic systems, innovatively integrating co-evolutionary mechanisms between agents and their environment, structural causal model (SCM)–based counterfactual reasoning, and a self-correcting paradigm that closes the loop among simulation, analysis, and optimization. By combining large language models with automated workflows, the framework enables end-to-end modeling. Empirical validation demonstrates its ability to successfully reproduce canonical economic phenomena—such as canal decline, the emergence of governance, and information diffusion—thereby confirming its intervenability, iterability, scalability, and generalizability across diverse scenarios.