The objective of this study is to see the effect of three factors, given a fixed money supply and fixed background conditions. Follow this link for the source code bs_2008-11-15.c if you want to try at home. The variable factors are all psychlogical factors in the market participants. In particular:
The plotted variable is the percentage of demand satisfied as calculated by the total "natural" demand in hours (that is, the base hours, plus seasonal adjustments). An additional "unnatural" modification to demand is added by people deliberately not spending because want to save to meet their savings target. It seems a logical presumption that the whole idea of having an organised babysitting cooperative is for the purpose of giving parents the opportunity of going out with their children looked after, so it makes sense to see fulfilled demand as the objective function for the economy. This is not quite the same as GDP, because when a natural downturn in demand occurs (i.e. winter time and everyone wants to stay home) the objective percentage still can't get past 100 percent (unless you try to force people to spend when they have no particular desire to do so, and this simulation makes no attempt to test that concept).
It should be noted, that whoever is designing the economic "rules of the game" cannot design the participants. These factors will evolve of their own accord. This study only shows the effect of those changing factors, now how to go about changing the minds of real people (sorry for anyone who got here off a search engine, in the hope of gaining some practical techniques).
It should also be noted that 100% satisfaction of demand can't be achieved in any of these sweeps. There will always be situations where someone misses out. Presumably, without a babysitting cooperative, they would all be worse off.
bs_2008-11-15 \ --max-kids=2 \ --base-hrs-mean=2 \ --base-hrs-sigma=4 \ --rich-threshold=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --savings-target-factor=0.05 \ --savings-target=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --start-balance=10 \ --sweep-fine
bs_2008-11-15 \ --max-kids=2 \ --base-hrs-mean=2 \ --base-hrs-sigma=4 \ --rich-threshold=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --savings-target-factor=0.15 \ --savings-target=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --start-balance=10 \ --sweep-fine
bs_2008-11-15 \ --max-kids=2 \ --base-hrs-mean=2 \ --base-hrs-sigma=4 \ --rich-threshold=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --savings-target-factor=0.3 \ --savings-target=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --start-balance=10 \ --sweep-fine
Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians.
Consider outsourcing... :-)
Another conclusion is that when people have a high savings target, (and they make a serious effort to reach that savings target) so many people restrict their spending that the economy slows down. It would have to go a long way out before we get to a position where the economy stops altogether, but it does show that just like we can't all be rich, so also we can't all be saving up large quantities of credit.
It sounds a bit like the ideal situation is a high rich threshold with a low savings target (keep everyone working, don't try to save money). Unfortunately, in the extreme case, as the rich threshold gets too high, there is a small weakening of the economy which is most likely caused by some individuals collecting such a lot of credit that it slurps out the available liquidity in the rest of the economy. This is a much weaker effect than the other cases.
This concentrated wealth in the hands of a few individuals does bleed the economy of liquidity, regardless of the savings target. Thus, if we want the highest possible level of economic activity, it is an advantage if people don't hoard too much credit. Note that the effect of this is not substantial and also note that it is not consistent -- during times when shortage of labour is throttling the economy, hoarding credit doesn't matter but during times when shortage of liquidity is the limiting factor, having idle rich around doesn't matter.
Here are some more plots, where the rich threshold goes higher (we ignore the regions where the rich threshold is obviously unworkably low).
bs_2008-11-15 \ --max-kids=2 \ --base-hrs-mean=2 \ --base-hrs-sigma=4 \ --rich-threshold=10 \ --sweep-to=110 \ --savings-target-factor=0.05 \ --savings-target=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --start-balance=10 \ --sweep-fine
bs_2008-11-15 \ --max-kids=2 \ --base-hrs-mean=2 \ --base-hrs-sigma=4 \ --rich-threshold=10 \ --sweep-to=110 \ --savings-target-factor=0.30 \ --savings-target=0 \ --sweep-to=25 \ --start-balance=10 \ --sweep-fine
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