Are there any agent based cognitive models that are inspired by complex systems studies of ant colonies and economies?
Partial answer:
Douglas Hofstadter has written quite a lot about this from a more philosophical approach.
His style isn't for everyone, I think it's introduced well in this chapter ('Ant Fugue').
For more applied work from the same, you might look at Mitchell and Hofstadter's CopyCat model of analogies (described briefly here, as well as on wikipedia).
All this aside, I don't know of any empirical work along the same lines, but I wouldn't rule it out.