no doubt that well-being has a less clear-cut meaning: but complexity and ambiguity can in fact
be conveniently managed without losing their strong informative potential.
2 A simple dynamic operationalization of the CFM
2.1 System dynamics and the CFM
System dynamics is basically a methodology for studying and managing the complexity of
the world around us. Traditional analysis focuses on the separation of the individual element of a
system. On the contrary, the central concept to system dynamics is understanding how all the
objects in a system interact with one another. This means that system dynamics takes into
account all the possible interactions to understand the basic structure of a system, and thus to
understand the behaviors it can produce. The elements in a system can interact along a one way
route or through feedback loops, where a change in one variable affects other variables over
time, which in turn affect the original variable, and so on.
System dynamics constructs and tests computer simulation models, since these models can
carry out the calculations needed to predict the often counterintuitive behaviors of systems. The
different elements of a system must be translated into the language of system thinking. In
practical terms the variables of a mental model must be translated into the following building
blocks of a system dynamics model.
• Stock. Stocks are accumulators whose magnitudes at a point in time show how things
are within the system at that point in time. In CFM commodities are represented by
stocks.
• Flow. Flows are the rate of change of the stocks. In CFM they are the activities which
build up or deplete the stocks (i.e. the commodities).
• Converter. Converters basically modify the flows within the system and convert
inputs into outputs. But they can also represent either information or material
quantities. In CFM they have both these functions. In the former they play the role of
conversion factors, transforming the commodities (inputs) into functionings
(outputs). In the latter they are the functionings, “score-keeping” variables whose
variation over time highlight the well-being of the system at different points in time.
• Connector. Connectors allow information to pass between converters and converters,
stocks and converters, stocks and flows, and converters and flows. They do not have
numerical values, but simply transmit values between the elements of the CFM.
In figure 3 we depict the system dynamic language for a sub-system relating to a single
functioning of CFM.
In general, a model is a simplified representation of a system at some particular point in time
or space, intended to promote understanding of the real system. The system our model intends to
represent is human well-being as intended in Sen’s capability approach. A simulation generally
refers to a computerization of the developed model, which is run over time to study the
implications of the defined interactions of the parts of the system. The real benefit of modeling
and simulation is the ability to accomplish a time and space compression of the
interrelationships within a system, bringing into view the results of interactions that would
normally escape us because they are not closely related in time and space. The purpose of
modelling and simulating in the CFM is to verify the variations over time of the functionings,
due to the assumed variations of some elements of the system (the commodities).
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