

The theory of complex dynamic ecosystems views economy of the state as complex configurations of multitudes of economic actors (individuals, firms, industries, states) engaged in overlapping and interlocking patterns of relationship with one another and with environment. Ecological-economic systems are groups of interacting, interdependent parts linked together by exchanges of energy, matter, capital and information. Economic dynamics is complex in the sense that it is characterized by heterogeneity of economic actors’ capabilities, desires, needs and knowledge, high interrelatedness among economic actors, emergence of macro-level properties from multiple individual interactions, and the rise of feedback effects caused by economic actors’ capabilities of recognizing and responding to the emergent macro-level features. This is a report on using systems thinking and system dynamics methodology to understand complex, dynamic ecological-economic and managerial problems. One objective is to learn system dynamics, a simulation based methodology to analyze complex dynamic ecological-economic problems. To this purpose, concepts of dynamic complexity, tools of dynamic feedback modeling, the important role of feedback, delays and nonlinearities, and basic dynamic feedback structures are covered.