Holly Sutherland - Böcker

Tax-benefit models are powerful tools for the analysis of the impact of policy reform, in regular use around the world in government and research organisations. This study focuses on one particular model, POLIMOD, and performs three tasks. It provides an illustration of the type of analysis that can be performed, and demonstrates the sensitivity of results to some of the key assumptions that are made. It steps inside POLIMOD and documents some of the inner layers of data manipulation and model construction that drive its output. And it provides a detailed assessment of the reliability of those outputs based on a validation against external sources. The study offers those who use models like POLIMOD, or their outputs, an appreciation of the constraints and assumptions that shape the analysis they provide. And it provides those directly involved in the development of microsimulation models with a guide to methods.

Modern policy problems require analysts to capture the interactions between policy and the complexities of economic and social life, as well as between policies of different types. Increasingly, microsimulation is employed to analyse these problems. This book brings together examples of microsimulation modelling that are at the frontiers of developments in the field, either because they extend the range of techniques available to modellers, or because they demonstrate new applications for established methods. It represents the state of the art with chapters on the use of microsimulation for comparative policy research and for challenging conventional assumptions, combining microsimulation with other types of economic models and the much-neglected subjects of model alignment and validation. Data and case studies are taken from regions including Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.

This book offers the first systematic assessment of income redistribution in Eastern Europe, within a comparative European perspective, and it demonstrates the future research potential of microsimulation techniques in this region. The book's chapters are based on a unique instrument -- EUROMOD: the European tax-benefit microsimulation model, which has been enlarged to include Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and other countries. Tax-benefit models such as EUROMOD are computer programmes based on household micro-data, which calculate each household's disposable income. Microsimulation can be used to evaluate the impact of current taxes and benefit policies on individuals' incomes and work incentives. In addition, the model is designed to answer 'what if' questions about different policy reforms, allowing the potential effects of proposed changes to be studied before their actual implementation. EUROMOD goes one step further in the process of helping policy design, in allowing international comparisons between EU countries. This book offers an important demonstration of the effectiveness of tax-benefit models in presenting complex information in a concise and comprehensible way. It discusses what the barriers to their adoption to date have been and it looks at the possibilities EUROMOD offers to future policy-making in Europe.