Modern industrial civilisation has created massive interdependencies which define it and without which it could not function. We all depend on industrial farming to produce the food we eat, we depend on gasoline being available at the gas station,  on the availability of electricity and even on the bread supplied by the local baker. Naturally, we tend to support the institutions that supply the amenities and goods to which we have become accustomed: if we get our food from the local supermarket, it is likely that we would be opposed to it’s closure. This means that the economic system that relies on continuous growth enjoys implicit societal support and that nothing short of environmental disaster or a shortage of essential raw materials will impede it’s growing indefinitely. It is not hard to work out the consequences of this situation!

:)

This simple model describes wealth accumulation. The value in income is described by the following simple equation:

Implementação do modelo Handy.

Referência:

Motesharrei, S.; Rivas, J.; Kalnay, E. "Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modelling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies". Ecological Economics 101 (2014) 90-102

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615

This is a toy model of fractional reserve banking.

Ocean/atmosphere/biosphere model tuned for interactive economics-based simulations from Y2k on.

WIP Social determinants of health from Michael Marmot's  ABC 2016 Boyer Lectures on Social Justice and the Health Gap See US Data website for data and AIHW website for concepts. See also IM-83417 Marmot Essay 2017

Model description: 

This model is designed to simulate the Covid-19 outbreak in Burnie, Tasmania by estimating several factors such as exposed population, infection rate, testing rate, recovery rate, death rate and immunity loss. The model also simulates the measures implemented by the government which will impact on the local infection and economy. 

 

Assumption:

Government policies will reduce the mobility of the population as well as the infection. In addition, economic activities in the tourism and hospitality industry will suffer negative influences from the government measures. However, essential businesses like supermarkets will benefit from the health policies on the contrary.

 

Variables:

Infection rate, recovery rate, death rate, testing rate are the variables to the cases of Covid-19. On the other hand, the number of cases is also a variable to the government policies, which directly influences the number of exposed. 

 

The GDP is dependent on the variables of economic activities. Nonetheless, the government’s lockdown measure has also become the variable to the economic activities. 

 

Interesting insights:

Government policies are effective to curb infection by reducing the number of exposed when the case number is greater than 10. The economy becomes stagnant when the case spikes up but it climbs up again when the number of cases is under control. 

The economy is a self-organizing system that needs continuous growth and a constant inflow of energy and materials in order to maintain itself.  Absence of growth will make the system fragile, and economic contraction could lead very quickly to its collapse. These are characteristics of dissipative systems that apply to the free market economy. Another characteristic is that economic activity will unavoidably lead to the generation of waste heat, greenhouse gases and waste materials that the system must expel into its environment, making the system unviable in the present context of global warming and increasing oil prices.

The simplified graphic representation of the economy shows how it is basically profits that generate the funds for the resources needed to guarantee that the system can continue to grow. Loans do not fulfil this function, since loans must be repaid from profit and credit institutions will be reluctant to extend loans if they fear their profits are endangered by the inability of creditors to generate enough income to meet interest payments. So the system depends on private companies and blind market forces. However, society can no longer rely on a system that is blindly guided by the profit motive and that is to a large degree responsible for much of the environmental problems that now afflict us. The system cannot continue in its present self-reinforcing growth mode. Governments can and must step in to fulfil their responsibility and fundamentally reform a system that has become harmful and that is driven exclusively by profit.

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WIP Book summary of Frank Stilwell's 2019 Book, The Political Economy of Inequality, Polity Press podcast and slides

This page provides a structural analysis of POTUS Candidate Rand Paul's economic policy based on the information at:  https://www.randpaul.com/issue/spending-and-debt and also   https://www.randpaul.com/issue/taxes  The method used is Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) available: ​ http://scipolicy.org/uploads/3/4/6/9/3469675/wallis_white_paper_-_the_ipa_answer_2014.12.11.pdf

From Walrave ISDC2014 paper Counteracting the success trap in publically owned corporations. Similar to the ordinary (efficiency focussed) and dynamic capabilities (explore) insight described by David Teece

Ocean/atmosphere/biosphere model tuned for interactive economics-based simulations from Y2k on.

Causal loop representations of macroeconomics taken from the System Dynamics literature contrasted with Forrester's main analysis of social and business organization layers See also Saeed's Forrester Economics IM-183285

Model-SIM from Chapter 3 of Wynn Godley and Marc Lavoie's Monetary Economics, adapted for an open economy. The model is stock-flow consistent with only government money--no bills or bonds. No central bank and interest rates do not change. Government spends buying output from the production sector. The production sector is passive turning over all revenue over to households. Households save out of income and spend partially spend out of wealth. Imports and exports pass through the production sector illustrating the idea that consumer households buy from domestic businesses that which they have imported. The model also tracks the sectoral balance flows and changes in equity. Sectoral flows and equity balances match each other dollar for dollar to satisfy the sectoral balances accounting identity (Household Saving - Consumption) + (Business Saving - Expenditure) + (Taxes - Government Spending) - (Exports - Imports) = 0. Since business investment occurs internally to the Business Sector, 

WIP Dynamic map from Steve Keen's Minsky at 100 Lecture video and slides and later Emergent Macroeconomics papers