Building a Macroeconomic Simulator with Multi-Layered Supplier–Customer Relationships

Abstract

This study constructs an agent-based model suitable for analyzing the propagation of economic shocks based on a macroeconomic agent-based model structure that covers major economic entities. Instead of setting an upstream and downstream structure of firms in the inter-firm networks, our model includes a mechanism that connects each firm through supplier–customer relationships and incorporates interactions between firms mutually buying and selling intermediate input materials. It is confirmed through the proposed model’s simulation analysis that, although a firm’s sales volume temporarily falls due to an economic shock of the type that causes a sharp decline in households’ final demand, the increase in assets held by households as they refrain from spending rather expands their capacity for consumption. As a result, after the economic shock ceases to exist, the firm’s sales volume tends to be even greater than that of the preceding periods of the shock. Furthermore, we found that when the sales volume of products in a final consumer goods sector falls during the shock, the falls in sales in the non-final consumer goods sectors are suppressed due to replacement demand, and the increase in sales volume for the non-final consumer goods sectors is moderated after the shock ceases to exist.

Keywords

• agent-based model
• macroeconomic simulator
• supplier–customer network