Spending by the government creates its own 'financial resource' as the process of crediting an account in the private sector takes place. This may sound like nonsense, but in fact it is 'monetary reality'. This premise is supported by Bell (1998; 2000) and Wray (1998a) who argue that the Treasury does not need to collect or borrow funds in order to spend, but crates new funds as it spends.

Perhaps the following thought experiment  helps to understand how this is possible.  

If you imagine two drawers, each representing an account. The first drawer contains 100 gold coins and the second is empty. Also imagine that there are no other gold coins available at this time. Let's call the first drawer account A and the second account B. Now if you want to transfer 30 gold coins from account A to account B, you would actually first have to take the coins out of drawer A and then place them into drawer B. Account A will then necessarily have 30 coins less in it. Now imagine accounts A and B are held in a computer as electronic money. Instead of 100 gold coins, account A only contains the computer generated number '100'  and account B shows '0'. To get account B to show a balance of '30', it would now simple be necessary to change the '0' to '30' on the computer. The need to raid account A and to take '30' from the number '100' before you could credit  account B does not exist. Money is created as it is entered in B's account irrespective of whether A's account is debited before or after this process or not at

This model is designed for the local government of Burnie, Tasmania, aiming to help with balancing COIVD-19 and economic impacts during a possible outbreak. 

The model has been developed based upon the SIR model (Susceptible, Infected, Recovered) model used in epidemiology. 

It lists several possible actions that can be taken by the government during a COVID-19 outbreak and provide the economic impact simulation. 

The model allow users to Change the government policies factors (Strength of Policies) and simulate the total economic impact.

Interestingly, the government plicies largely help with controlling the COVID outbreak. However, the stronger the policies are, the larger impact on local economy

Model description:

This model is designed to simulate the outbreak of Covid-19 in Burnie in Tasmania. It also tell us the impact of economic policies on outbreak models and economic growth.

 

Variables:

The simulation takes into account the following variables and its adjusting range: 

 

On the left of the model, the variables are: infection rate( from 0 to 0.25), recovery rate( from 0 to 1), death rate( from 0 to 1), immunity loss rate( from 0 to 1), test rate ( from 0 to 1), which are related to Covid-19.

 

In the middle of the model, the variables are: social distancing( from 0 to 0.018), lock down( from 0 to 0.015), quarantine( from 0 to 0.015), vaccination promotion( from 0 to 0.019), border restriction( from 0 to 0.03), which are related to governmental policies.

 

On the right of the model, the variables are: economic growth rate( from 0 to 0.3), which are related to economic growth.

 

Assumptions:

(1) The model is influenced by various variables and can produce different results. The following values based on the estimation, which differ from actual values in reality.

 

(2) Here are just five government policies that have had an impact on infection rates in epidemic models. On the other hand, these policies will also have an impact on economic growth, which may be positive or negative.

 

(3) Governmental policy will only be applied when reported cases are 10 or more. 

 

(4) This model lists two typical economic activities, namely e-commerce and physical stores. Government policies affect these two types of economic activity separately. They together with economic growth rate have an impact on economic growth.

 

Enlightening insights:

(1) In the first two weeks, the number of susceptible people will be significantly reduced due to the high infection rate, and low recovery rate as well as government policies. The number of susceptible people fall slightly two weeks later. Almost all declines have a fluctuating downward trend.

 

(2) Government policies have clearly controlled the number of deaths, suspected cases and COVID-19 cases.

 

(3) The government's restrictive policies had a negative impact on economic growth, but e-commerce economy, physical stores and economic growth rate all played a positive role in economic growth, which enabled the economy to stay in a relatively stable state during the epidemic.

Cutbacks can have a counterintuitive effect. The government knows precisely how much it custs in spending. However, it cannot know the extent to which tax revenues shrink in a non-linear complex economic system as the economy contracts. In addition, the treasury has to spend more as automatic stabilizers activate and payments are made to an increasing number of unemployed workers. The effect of this is that initially the deficit shrinks, but later it rises as tax revenues fall short of expectations and more spending takes place. The ironic part is that often the very indicator that promted austerity measurs, the defcit to GDP ratio, becomes worse than it was at the outset. We could observe this in Spain and Portugal where planned deficits have been repeatedly missed, as austerity measures  (fiscal cutbacks) were introduced to deal with the effects of  the 2008 financial crisis.

WIP Ideas from Science Special Issue May 2014

This model simulates the economics of buying a home. It was created to compare buying a home against using investment returns to pay for rent.

Summary WIP of Thomas Palley's 2012 Book

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

Summary of Ch1 of Mitchell Wray and Watts Textbook see IM-164967 for overview

Explanation of the Model

However, an unchanging doctrine may prompt actions that influence and change reality. Do ill-adapted doctrinal reactions not increase the complexity in the world, potentially making everything worse? Some Neoliberal economic remedies come to mind. 

Adam Smith's The Invisible Hand: The Feedback Structure of Markets. From Sterman JD Business Dynamics p170 Fig 5-26. A price-mediated resource allocation system..