I've come across this: http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics.ipynb

Why this simulations here are far from reality, they notebook does a very good job of explaining an idea using a simple model. Are there similar approaches for other economic ideas?

I'm aware that understanding the economy as a whole is well beyond the grasp of simple models like this, but I'm curious just how far it is possible to get using simple models.

Most economic text books I've looked at either take a too wordy approach to descriptions, or a far too detailed mathematical approach.