In a glimpse

This project was an attempt to model, emulate and study the behavior of a country’s economy and socio-political groups. It combines elements of Economics (micro and macro economics), Psychology, Sociology and Politics.

Of course, the project’s initial focus was on programming. I don’t claim to be John Maynard Keynes nor Adam Smith, but in the process of developing this project, the more I got involved, all the more I studied fields other than my domain -Computer Science- in order to attempt to make it more realistic.

In any case the end results turned out to be quite interesting…

As a program, it is a system developed in Java containing Fuzzy Logic rules for many of its components and other elements of Computational Intelligence.

The entire project is a product of my own thought
and inspiration.

The trigger of this study…

“The hawk and dove game”
(John Maynard Smith: “Evolution and Theory of Games”, 1982)

• A game of two populations: Hawks vs. Doves
• Hawks eat doves
• Turns out that the two populations must either cooperate or perish

Could we make a correlation with the political system?

Honest vs. Corrupt?

 

System Architecture

A few assumptions for our components:

• Honest politicians attempt to improve the economy, while corrupt politicians try to satisfy a portion of the population, in order to get reelected
• Citizens with a high ability to judge can distinguish honest from corrupt politicians and always vote for honest
• Citizens with an average ability to judge have a high probability to distinguish honest from corrupt. These citizens consiously vote for either honest or corrupt, depending on economic conditions
• Citizens with a low ability to judge can not distinguish honest from corrupt and always vote for corrupt politicians

System Design

1. Each year, politicians help shape the economic conditions by:
   • Taxing citizens
   • Issuing bonds
   • Investing (consuming)
2. Based on the above actions, the following economic magnitudes are formed:
   • “Per Capita Income” (PCI)
   • Economic Growth Coefficient
   • Debt
   • Investment Return

Sample factors involved and programmed in the system:

Experiments

By conducting an experiment with 50% corrupt and 50% honest politicians and letting the system run for 50 years we get the following curves:

• As soon as the system converges a steady economic increase is observed
• The PCI is in general slightly below untaxed income
• Citizens tend to elect corrupt politicians when economic conditions improve and vice versa

Here is what we get with the population of politicians held steady at 20% honest and 80% corrupt throughout the course of 50 years:

And here is the opposite, a population of politicians held steady at 80% honest and 20% corrupt throughout the course of 50 years:

• 20-80% honest-corrupt: An economic increase is present, but the PCI remains below the untaxed income
• 80-20% honest-corrupt : There is an obvious growth of the economy, with a PCI maintained above untaxed income
• In both cases we have economic progress, but in the first case it is slower and reaches lower levels
• Also, in the second case, citizens enjoy a PCI greater than their income.
  This is due to investment return, which is a trait/result of the majority of the politicians being honest.

Conclusions

• Citizens have the tendency to elect corrupt politicians, depending on economic conditions
• This leads to a slow -yet steady- progress which is not optimal
• The domination of honest politicians results to a strong economy
• In any case, there is progress, both economic (PCI) and educational (PCE), which conforms to reality

Bibliography

• “Φυλακισμένοι με διλήμματα και κυρίαρχες στρατηγικές:
  Η θεωρία των παιγνίων” – Jordi Deulofeu
• “Economics” – Paul A. Samuelson
• “Understanding Microeconomics” – Robert L. Heilbroner, Lester C. Thurow
• “Understanding Macroeconomics” – Robert L. Heilbroner, Lester C. Thurow

 

For more details feel free to download the presentation of this project:

Political System Presentation (pdf)