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Reference Library

This is the curated reading list that anchors BDPD's design decisions and paper bibliographies. Each entry names the local PDF filename: in a working tree populated from ../doc/library/ the files live next to this page; the page itself is shipped as a discovery index, not as a redistribution channel for the PDFs themselves.

The set is curated, not exhaustive: every paper here is referenced in at least one BDPD publication (docs/publications/paper_{00,01,02,03}) or is load-bearing in a design choice in the dev docs.


Tragedy of the commons and Ostrom design principles

  • Hardin — The Tragedy of the Commons (The_Tragedy_of_the_Commons.pdf)
  • Ostrom — Governing the Commons (Governing_the_Commons.pdf)
  • Centola, Becker, Baronchelli, Brackbill — Tipping points in social conventions (CentolaBeckerBaronchelliBrackbill_2018_TippingPoints.pdf)
  • The Collapse of Cooperation — endogeneity of institutions (The_collapse_of_cooperation_the_endogeneity_of_ins.pdf)
  • Inequality and Conservation on the Local Commons (Inequality_and_Conservation_on_the_Local_Commons_A_Theoretical_Exercise.pdf)
  • The Role of Wealth Inequality in CPR Management (The Role of Wealth Inequality in Community Management of a Common‐Pool Resources.pdf)
  • Extraction Behaviour and Income Inequalities (Extraction_Behaviour_and_Income_Inequalities.pdf)

Seneca cliff, peak-oil, and overshoot dynamics

  • Bardi — The Seneca Effect (book) (The_Seneca_Effect_ Why_Growth_is_Slow_but_Collapse_is_Rapid.pdf)
  • Bardi — Why the Seneca Effect (essay) (Why Seneca Effect_.pdf)
  • Review — The Seneca Effect (UgoBARDI_TheSenecaEffect_review.pdf)
  • Peak Oil 20 Years Later (Peak_oil_20_years_later_Failed_prediction_or_usefu.pdf)
  • Toward better understanding of energy in economics (Toward_better_understanding_of_energy_in_economics.pdf)
  • Revisiting the Human-and-Nature Dynamics model (Revisiting_the_Human_and_Nature_Dynamics_model.pdf)
  • Highlighting archetypes of sustainability via dynamic models (Highlightingthearchetypesofsustainabilitymanagementbymeansofsimpledynamicsmodels.pdf)
  • Collapse — Institutional Decline and Breakdown (Collapse_Institutional_Decline_and_Breakdown_Its_E.pdf)
  • Sinet — board-game model of deforestation, 2025 (Sinet_2025.pdf)
  • A Simple Board Game for System Dynamics of Deforestation (A_Simple_Board_Game_for_Modeling_the_System_Dynami.pdf)

Polycentric governance and pollution

  • Polycentric Pollution Governance (polycentric_pollution_governance.pdf)
  • Cooperation Dynamics of Polycentric Climate Governance (Cooperation_Dynamics_of_Polycentric_Climate_Governance.pdf)
  • Climate Policies under Wealth Inequality (Climate_Policies_under_Wealth_Inequality.pdf)
  • The Political Economy of Deep Decarbonization (The_Political_Economy_of_Deep_Decarbonization_Trad.pdf)
  • Regulatory Capture — a Review (regulatory-capture-a-review-4bihdp9pz3.pdf)
  • Lohmann — leading vs lagging environmental indicators (leading_vs_lagging_indicators.pdf)
  • Lohmann, 2021 (Lohmann_2021.pdf)
  • Klose, 2021 (Klose_2021.pdf)
  • Wunderling, 2024 — tipping cascades (Wunderling_2024.pdf)
  • Land, 2023 — commons-pollution interactions (land-12-00651.pdf)
  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century.pdf)
  • Capitalism and Environmental Collapse — Marques (Capitalism and Environmental Collapse -- Luiz C Marques -- 1st edition 2020, Cham, 2020 -- Springer International Publishing _ Imprint_ Springer -- isbn13 9783030475260 -- 528ffeefc78269040e6f756b5de80492 -- Anna’s Archi.pdf)

Collective-risk dilemmas and pre-LLM ABM baselines

  • Milinski et al. — Collective Risk Social Dilemma (milinski-et-al-2008-the-collective-risk-social-dilemma-and-the-prevention-of-simulated-dangerous-climate-change.pdf)
  • Santos & Pacheco — Risk of Collective Failure (santos-pacheco-2011-risk-of-collective-failure-provides-an-escape-from-the-tragedy-of-the-commons.pdf)
  • A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation (A_Theory_Of_Fairness_Competition_And_Cooperation.pdf)
  • Multi-Agent RL Model of Commons (v1) (A_multi-agent_reinforcement_learning_model.pdf)
  • Multi-Agent RL Model of Commons (v2) (A_Multi-agent_Reinforcement_Learning_Model_of_Comm.pdf)
  • Qualitative methods in CPR research (s11135-023-01709-5 -- 9660fdde0ff8a0c0839c4a95d047028e -- Anna’s Archive.pdf)

LLM agents and machine behaviour

  • Park et al. — Generative Agents (Generative_Agents.pdf)
  • Autonomous chemical research with LLMs (Autonomous_chemical_research_with_large_language_models.pdf)
  • Machine Behaviour (Machine_behaviour.pdf)
  • arXiv:2001.00478v3 — LLM context (2001.00478v3.pdf)

PDF availability

The PDFs are .gitignored and not redistributed through the public site or the git repository (copyright reasons). To browse them locally, populate docs/library/*.pdf from the canonical source (../doc/library/ relative to this repo); the filenames in each entry above match the files in that directory. If you do not have the source tree, treat the page as a curated reading list and look the papers up via your preferred catalogue.