A Multi-Agent Simulation Model for individual purchasing behavior and shortages

Abstract

Information that the supply of daily necessities will decrease under the corona situation after the end of February 2020 was widely taken up. As a result, some people purchased more daily necessities than usual, and there were no more items at the store, resulting in a shortage of items that people who wanted to purchase could not purchase. Such a shortage of goods often occurs in an emergency or disaster caused by the coronavirus. Is the behavior of people in an emergency a "Hoarding" to buy more than necessary? If each individual had purchased only the minimum necessary amount, wouldn't there really be a shortage of goods? In this research, in order to investigate appropriate purchasing behavior for each individual and society to prevent shortages based on a model in situations where supply is balanced and unstable, we examined changes in store inventory and the results of shortage probabilities. In addition, we examined the recovery period in order to investigate how long the recovery period should be after the shortage of goods occurs so that the store inventory will recover and the probability of shortage of goods for each individual will return to the normal life.