Desenvolvimento de um modelo baseado em agentes para análise do consumo da carne bovina no Brasil

Abstract

Several studies have shown a large amount of evidence concerning the potential of lifestyle changes to reduce GHG emissions. Integrated assessment models are tools widely used by the scientific community to deal with the issue of climate change, but they present difficulty in capturing the heterogeneity and irrationality of consumers when modeling changes on the demand side. Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are pointed out as one of the promising solutions to this problem. Given the relevancy of the debate on dietary change as an important emission mitigation measure, where bovine meat stands out as a key component, and Brazil’s protagonist role in this context, this dissertation has the objective of developing an ABM to simulate the Brazilian beef consumption. Results indicate that the model was able to reproduce the consumption pattern analyzed and capture the heterogeneity of the population in relation to this behavior. When applying the price increase, individuals from the middle and lower classes had a greater impact on reducing consumption than the upper class reflecting how policies can impact the population in different ways when considering heterogeneity.