A Simulation of the Economic Impact of Disaster Events

Name: Richie Pajak
Major: Computer Science
Minor: Economics
Advisor: Heather Guarnera

The goal of this project is to determine the impact of natural disasters on an economy by analyzing the changes in prices of goods caused by disaster events that impact the supply of goods within the economy. This was accomplished with an agent-based model built in Python to simulate the effects of a natural disaster on normal economic activity. The simulation features a collection of businesses who produce and sell goods along with economic actors known as agents that are able to purchase goods and work in businesses to earn money. In order to respond to the economic forces of supply and demand present in the economy, the businesses are able to dynamically change the prices of the goods they sell. These changes are then tracked and analyzed to determine if the changes seen in the model reflect what would be expected according to established economic theory. Results from this project show that the model is accurate in predicting price change trends in goods that are present in an economy that is impacted by natural disasters.

Posted in Comments Enabled, Independent Study, Symposium 2022 on April 26, 2022.