Threshold rule and scaling behavior in a multi-agent supply chain

Abstract

In this paper an agent-based model of self organized criticality is developed in a network economy characterized by lead time and a threshold behavior of firms. Instead of considering the aggregate production of the economy as a whole, we focus on both the propagation and amplification effects of a demand shock in the sectorial productions of a multi-agent supply chain. We study a static network structure representing a relation of firms in a lower-upper stream in an industrial organization. In our model, the individual (R, nQ) policies play an important role in generating a propagation effect across the different layers of the economy, and the propagation turns into the large fluctuations and amplifications of sectorial productions.