Complex Systems Modeling of Community Inclusion Currencies

【Author】 Clark, Andrew; Mihailov, Alexander; Zargham, Michael

【Source】COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS

【影响因子】1.741

【Abstract】This interdisciplinary paper blends knowledge from computer science and economics in proposing a complex dynamic system subpopulation model for a blockchain form of local complementary currency, generic to the Grassroots Economics Foundation's Community Inclusion Currency (CIC) implemented in Kenya. Our contribution to the emerging economics literature is five-fold: (i) we take a novel meso-economic approach to elicit utility from actual transactions data and reveal an 'optimal' disaggregation number of typical community subgroups; (ii) we relate the local CIC functioning to a nation-wide currency board monetary regime to argue that such a credible CIC implementation ensures trust in the CIC and makes it a valuable market-based channel to alleviate poverty, in addition to humanitarian or government aid channels. However, (iii) we also find evidence in our data that substitutes for real-world money such as CICs are perceived as inferior, and hence CIC systems can only be transitional. Then, (iv) we reveal that, for a poor population, saving dominates as a use of a cluster's CIC balance, accounting for 47%, followed by purchase of food and water, 25%. Despite these dominant patterns, (v) we uncover a considerable heterogeneity in CIC spending behavior. Our contribution to the related computer-science and Tokenomics literature is two-fold: (i) we provide an open-source scaffold for modeling CIC viability and net flows; (ii) to simulate a subpopulation mixing process, we employ a network-based dynamical system modeling approach that is better grounded in economic principles and monetary theory.

【Keywords】Community inclusion currencies; Blockchain technologies; Poverty alleviation; Eliciting utility types; Complex dynamic systems; Subpopulation simulation; E42; E51; D47; G23; G51; I38

【发表时间】2023 2023 SEP 28

【收录时间】2023-10-22

【文献类型】实证数据

【主题类别】

区块链治理-市场治理-代币经济学