Lost in transactions: The case of the Boulogne s/mer fish market

Starting from some regularities of the Boulogne s/mer fish market, the model proposed here shows that in many circumstances the collective behavior may be ‘reasonable’ whereas the individuals may not be so. The properties which are empirically clear at the aggregate level are not necessarily derived from similar properties at the individual level. Thus, the macroscopic outcomes of the Boulogne s/mer fish market are not directly derived by any of the individual component involved, but are the self-organized outcomes of the agents’ interaction. The simple interaction of noisy and myopic agents leads the system to stabilize itself.