Synthetic Economies

11/19/2007 Synthetic Economies. Edward Castronova, Associate Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University, was the first economist to examine virtual worlds. His work on synthetic economies, and Everquest in particular, have helped to define the "cyberian frontier". Using traditional economic tools to aggregate and quantify virtual world data, Castronova has published two books on the subject: "Exodus to the Virtual World" and "Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games". He cofounded the blog Terra Nova. Professor Edward Castronova is the recipient of a grant from The MacArthur Foundation to develop a virtual world based on the works of William Shakespeare.

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