Philipp Harting

The Eurace@Unibi Model: An Agent-Based Macroeconomic Model for Economic Policy Analysis

This document provides a description of the modeling assumptions and economic features of the Eurace@Unibi model. Furthermore, the document shows typical patterns of the output generated by this model and compares it to empirically observable stylized facts. The Eurace@Unibi model provides a representation of a closed macroeconomic model with spatial structure. The main objective is to provide a micro-founded macroeconomic model that can be used as a unified framework for policy analysis in different economic policy areas and for the examination of generic macroeconomic research questions. In spite of this general agenda the model has been constructed with certain specific research questions in mind and therefore certain parts of the model, e.g. the mechanisms driving technological change, have been worked out in more detail than others. The purpose of this document is to give an overview over the model itself and its features rather than discussing how insights into particular economic issues can be obtained using the Eurace@Unibi model. The model has been designed as a framework for economic analysis in various domains of economics. A number of economic issues have been examined using (prior versions of) the model (see Dawid et al. (2008), Dawid et al. (2009), Dawid et al. (2011a), Dawid and Harting (2011), van der Hoog and Deissenberg (2011), Cincotti et al. (2010)) and recent extensions of the model have substantially extended its applicability in various economic policy domains, however results of such policy analyses will be reported elsewhere. Whereas the overall modeling approach, the different modeling choices and the economic rationale behind these choices is discussed in some detail in this document, no detailed description of the implementation is given. Such a detailed documentation is provided in the accompanying document Dawid et al. (2011b).

Skills, Innovation, and Growth: An Agent-Based Policy Analysis

Summary We develop an agent-based macroeconomic model featuring a distinct geographical dimension and heterogeneous workers with respect to skill types. The model, which will become part of a larger simulation platform for European policymaking (EURACE), allows us to conduct exante evaluations of a wide range of public policy measures and their interaction. In particular, we study the growth and labor market effects of various policy types that promote workers’ general skill levels. Using a calibrated model it is examined in how far effects differ if spending is uniformly spread over all regions in the economy or focused in one particular region.We find that the geographic distribution of policy measures significantly affects the effects of the policy even if total spending is kept constant. Focussing training efforts in one region is the worst policy outcome while spreading funds equally across regions generates a larger output in the long-run but not in the short-run.

Labor market integration policies and the convergence of regions: the role of skills and technology diffusion

We study the role of different labor market integration policies on economic performance and convergence of two distinct regions in an agent-based model. Production is characterized by a complementarity between the quality of the capital stock and the specific skills of workers using the capital stock. Hence, productivity changes in a region are influenced both by the investment of local firms in high quality capital goods and by the evolution of the specific skill distribution of workers employed in the region. We show that various labor market integration policies yield, via differing regional worker flows, to distinct regional distributions of specific skills. Through this mechanism, relative regional prices are affected, determining the shares that the regions can capture from overall consumption good demand. There occurs a trade-off between aggregate output and convergence of regions with closed labor markets resulting in relatively high convergence but low output, and more integrated labor markets yielding higher output but lower convergence. Furthermore, results differ substantially in several respects as distinct labor market opening policies are applied.

Capturing Firm Behavior in Agent-based Models of Industry Evolution and Macroeconomic Dynamics

This new and original collection of papers focuses on the intersection of three strands of research: evolutionary economics, behavioral economics, and management studies. Combining theoretical and empirical contributions, the expert contributors demonstrate that the intersection of these fields provides a rich source of opportunities enabling researchers to find more satisfactory answers to questions that (not only evolutionary) economists have long been tackling. Topics discussed include individual agents and their interactions; the behavior and development of firm organizations; and evolving firms and their broader implications for the development of regions and entire economies.

A Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomic Model for Policy Evaluation: Improving Transparency and Reproducibility

This paper provides a detailed description of the Eurace@Unibi model, which has been developed as a versatile tool for economic policy analysis. The model explicitly incorporates the decentralized interaction of heterogeneous agents across different sectors and regions. The modeling of individual behavior is based on heuristics with empirical microfoundations. Although Eurace@Unibi has been applied successfully to different policy domains, the complexity of the structure of the model, which is similar to other agent-based macroeconomic models, has given rise to concerns about the reproducibility and robustness of the obtained insights. This paper addresses these concerns by describing the exact details of all decision rules, interaction protocols and balance sheets used in the model. Furthermore, we discuss the use of a virtual appliance as a tool allowing third parties to reproduce and verify the simulation results. The paper provides a systematic and extensive sensitivity analysis of the simulation output with respect to a set of key parameters. Particular emphasis is put on the question which parameter constellations give rise to strong economic fluctuations and high frequencies of sudden downturns in economic activity.

Spatial Labor Market Frictions and Economic Convergence: Policy Implications from aHeterogeneous Agent Model

This paper studies the effectiveness of different types of cohesion policies with respect to convergence of regions. A two-region agentbased macroeconomic model is used to analyze short-, medium- and long-term effects of policies improving human capital and fostering adoption of technologies in lagging regions. With fully integrated labor markets the human capital policy positively affects the economically stronger region but reduces production in the targeted weaker region. Subsidies for high technology investment in the weaker region have a positive local output effect and a negative effect on the neighboring region, thereby fostering convergence. When labor markets are not integrated both policies support convergence.

Fiscal Transfers and Regional Economic Growth

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, with periphery countries in the European Union even more falling behind the core countries economically, there have been quests for various kind of fiscal policies in order to revert divergence. How these policies would unfold and perform comparatively is largely unknown. We analyze four such stylized policies in an agent-based macroeconomic model and study the economic mechanisms behind their relative success. Our main findings are that the core country sharing the debt burden of the periphery country has almost no effect on the growth dynamics of that region, fiscal transfers have a positive short and long run impact on per capita consumption in the target region, and that technology oriented firm subsidies have the strongest positive long run impact on competitiveness of the periphery country at which they are targeted. The positive effect of the technology oriented policy is reinforced if combined with household transfers.

Stabilization Policies and Long Term Growth: Policy Implications from an Agent-Based Macroeconomic Model

Do fiscal stabilization policies affect the long-term growth of the economy? If so, are the long-term effects growth-enhancing or growth-reducing? These questions have again become relevant to the political and academic debate since governments have been forced to spend considerable funds for economic stimulus packages as a response to the recent economic crisis. The answers provided by the economic literature are inconclusive. But a general observation is that, while the theoretical literature has emphasized the importance of structural issues as, e.g., the modeling approach of endogeneous technological change, less attention has been paid to an elaborate design of the considered fiscal stabilization policies. This paper uses a closed agent-based macroeconomic model that generates endgenous business cycles to emphasize the role of the policy design for long-term growth effects of stabilization policies. By comparing a demand-oriented consumption policy and two different investment subsidizing policies, we can show that the considered policies are equally successful in smoothing the business cycle, but have different implications for the medium and long-term growth of the economy. Hence, not only modeling assumptions as stressed by the literature but also the concrete implementation of the policy seems to be important for the analysis of long-term effects of stabilization policies.