A simple agent-based spatial model of the economy: tools for policy

摘要

This study simulates the evolution of artificial economies in order tounderstand the tax relevance of administrative boundaries in the quality oflife of its citizens. The modeling involves the construction of a computationalalgorithm, which includes citizens, bounded into families; firms andgovernments; all of them interacting in markets for goods, labor and realestate. The real estate market allows families to move to dwellings with higherquality or lower price when the families capitalize property values. The goodsmarket allows consumers to search on a flexible number of firms choosing byprice and proximity. The labor market entails a matching process between firms(location) and candidates (qualification). The government may be configuredinto one, four or seven distinct sub-national governments. The role ofgovernment is to collect taxes on the value added of firms in its territory andinvest the taxes into higher levels of quality of life for residents. The modeldoes not have a credit market. The results suggest that the configuration ofadministrative boundaries is relevant to the levels of quality of life arisingfrom the reversal of taxes. The model with seven regions is more dynamic, withhigher GDP values, but more unequal and heterogeneous across regions. Thesimulation with only one region is more homogeneously poor. The study seeks tocontribute to a theoretical and methodological framework as well as todescribe, operationalize and test computer models of public finance analysis,with explicitly spatial and dynamic emphasis. Several alternatives of expansionof the model for future research are described. Moreover, this study adds tothe existing literature in the realm of simple microeconomic computationalmodels, specifying structural relationships between local governments andfirms, consumers and dwellings mediated by distance.