Microsimulation

Abstract: This paper aims to provide an introduction to the current state of the art of EUROMOD, the European Union tax-benefit microsimulation model. It explains the original motivations for building a multi-country EU-wide model and summarises its current organisation. It provides an overview of EUROMOD components, covering its policy scope, the input data, the validation process and some technical aspects such as the tax-benefit programming language and the user interface. The paper also reviews some recent applications of EUROMOD and, finally, considers future developments.

Abstract: This article compares the effects of increasing traditional welfare to introducing in-work benefits in the 15 (pre-enlargement) countries of the European Union. We use a labour supply model encompassing responses to taxes and transfers along both the intensive and extensive margins, and the EUROMOD microsimulation model to estimate current marginal and participation tax rates. We quantify the equity-efficiency trade-off for a range of elasticity parameters. In most countries, because of large existing welfare programmes with high phase-out rates, increasing traditional welfare is undesirable unless the redistributive tastes of the government are extreme. In contrast, the in-work benefit reform is desirable in a very wide set of cases.

Abstract: UrbanSim is a new urban simulation model, developed over the past several years, which is now operational in three urban areas in the United States. The model system is designed to address emerging needs to better coordinate transportation and land use planning as a result of recognition of the strong interactions between land use and transportation, increasing pressure from federal transportation and environmental legislation, and growing adoption of state growth management programs. The model system is implemented as a set of interacting model components that represent the major actors and choices in the urban system, including household moving and residential location, business choices of employment location, and developer choices of locations and types of real estate development, all subject to the influence of governmental transportation and land use policy scenarios. The model design is unusual in the degree of disaggregation of space, time, and agents, and in the adoption of a dynamic disequilibrium approach. The objective of this paper is to describe the entire system at a sufficient level of detail to convey the key specification and design choices made in implementing the system.

Abstract: The Comprehensive Econometric Microsimulator for Daily Activity-Travel Patterns (CEMDAP) is a microsimulation implementation of an activity-travel modeling system. Given as input various land use, sociodemographic, activity system, and transportation level-of-service attributes, the system provides as output the complete daily activity-travel patterns for each individual in each household of a population. The underlying econometric modeling framework and the software development experience associated with CEMDAP are described. The steps involved in applying CEMDAP to predict activity-travel patterns and to perform policy analysis are also presented. Empirical results obtained from applying the software to the Dallas-Fort Worth area demonstrate that CEMDAP provides a means of analyzing policy impacts in ways that are generally infeasible with the conventional four-stage approach.