Social scientists have frequently sought to understand the distinct effects of age, period, and cohort, but disaggregation of the three dimensions is difficult because cohort = period - age. We argue that this technical difficulty reflects a disconnection between how the cohort effect is conceptualized and how it is modeled in the traditional…

Agent-based modeling has become increasingly popular in recent years, but there is still no codified set of recommendations or practices for how to use these models within a program of empirical research. This article provides ideas and practical guidelines drawn from sociology, biology, computer science, epidemiology, and statistics. We first…