Um modelo baseado em agente de ciclo econômico com redes de produção, redes financeiras e mercado de trabalho: a pandemia de Covid-19 e a economia dos EUA

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to determine what the direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dynamics of the American economy are, as well as the transmission mechanisms of these effects and the efficacy of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. The objective of this dissertation is to analyze these direct and indirect effects on the dynamics of the American economy during the period of March 2020 to December 2021 through the use of a macroeconomic agent-based model. Two main theoretical contributions that differ this dissertation’s model from previous ones were made by this research: first, the implementation of production networks, financial networks and a labor market that is capable of qualitatively analyzing the direct and indirect effects of the economic shocks from the pandemic on the country’s GDP and unemployment rate; and second, the application of a macroeconomic agent-based model on the analysis of the efficacy of public policies during the period being evaluated. The emerging properties of the model were explored through the simulation of 3 different scenarios: in the first scenario, the simulations were carried out assuming the absence of exogenous shocks on supply and demand; in the second scenario, the simulations seek to assess simultaneous negative shocks on supply, such as interruptions in global production chains and restrictions in the labor market, and exogenous shocks on demand, such as a drop in marginal propensity to consume; in the third scenario, positive shocks of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies are added to the shocks from the second scenario. By comparing the results of the second and third scenarios, it was concluded that the rapid recovery of the US economy’s GDP can be attributed to the positive shocks caused by the public policies implemented at the time. Other findings are that integrated production networks with stocks larger than the efficient level amortize shocks arising from the production chains, and that fiscal and monetary policies, even when implemented simultaneously with the epidemiological shocks, cannot prevent a short-term drop of the GDP.