Today's economies depend heavily on one another through international trade. To model them pr... more Today's economies depend heavily on one another through international trade. To model them properly, the models need to depend on one another. For the models to work together, they must observe similar conventions for input and output of data, and ways of specifying alternative futures must be similar. At the same time, economies are very different and the models describing them must have much freedom for diversity in internal structure. These simple ideas are the foundation of a gradually evolving consortium of input-output models and their builders. By working together, much time can be saved by avoiding repetitious programming and very little freedom lost in model specification. What could never be done by one group may perhaps be accomplished together. Models are presently available for Japan, the United States, Canada, Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Britain. Models of Hungary and the Netherlands are under construction. Groups in Austria, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, and the German Democratic Republic expect to begin work on members of the family in the near future. This paper describes the steps in the construction of a national model in this family; it explains how scenarios may be specified and shows typical structures of the real and the price sides of these models. The plan for the international linking system is explained and progress towards its realization described.
: During the summer of 1998, a group of independent experts was convened at the request of the Pr... more : During the summer of 1998, a group of independent experts was convened at the request of the President of the Institute for Defense Analyses to review IDA's work in developing the computer-based simulation game known as Synthetic Environments for National Security Estimates (SENSE). These experts were selected because of their recognized credentials in the fields of macroeconomics, the economics of transition economies, psychology and conflict resolution, and on-the-ground international aid activities. The panel observed and played SENSE games, and reviewed its technical underpinnings.
Two ways of making a product-to-product table are commonly recognized, one based on the product-t... more Two ways of making a product-to-product table are commonly recognized, one based on the product-technology assumption and the other on the industry-technology assumption. The second is recognized as highly implausible but is often used because the first frequently leads to small negative flows which make no economic sense. This paper shows how a slight adjustment in the product-technology assumption leads to an algorithm that is certain to avoid negative flows yet keep close to the spirit of the product- technology assumption. Some details of the application of this method to the USA table for 1992 are reported. Similar applications to every American table since 1958 have given consistently sensible results. A computer program for the method is included.
The Inforum international system connects multisectoral macroeconomic models of twelve major indu... more The Inforum international system connects multisectoral macroeconomic models of twelve major industrial countries via a model of bilateral trade flows at the level of 120 products. For this paper, the historical data and the forecasts to 2010 for seven of the countries - Italy, France, Spain, Germany, USA, Japan, and China - have been aggregated to 34 fairly comparable industries. The shifts in the industrial structure of employment between 1980 and 1995 are compared both among the countries and with the further shifts expected between 1995 and 2010. The countries are becoming more similar in that the share of agriculture in all of them is diminishing. In the structure of non-agricultural employment, however, they appear to be diverging. After pointing out a "low-tech drift" in the structure of Italian employment and a simultaneous drop in Italy's investment/GDP ratio, the paper asks: To what extent could Italy influence its industrial structure by increasing investmen...
"Burst of Fall" is a 1968 painting by the Alma W. Thomas, and African-American woman pa... more "Burst of Fall" is a 1968 painting by the Alma W. Thomas, and African-American woman painter of the Washington Color school. This brief note describes the circumstances of its origin and of its initial purchase. It includes as jpg image of the painting.
This is the story in tutorial form of the creation of a program, Gwx, for building economic model... more This is the story in tutorial form of the creation of a program, Gwx, for building economic models, both macroeconomic and multisectoral. The program closely resembles the G7 program. Like G7, it is written in C++ but it is built with free, open-source, cross-platform tools. There are many books about how to use some specific computer program but few about what was going on in the mind of the designer and programmer as the project evolved, as problems emerged and were solve. This is such a book. The program, Gwx, is designed to be used with the author's book, The Craft of Economic Modeling.
Today's economies depend heavily on one another through international trade. To model them pr... more Today's economies depend heavily on one another through international trade. To model them properly, the models need to depend on one another. For the models to work together, they must observe similar conventions for input and output of data, and ways of specifying alternative futures must be similar. At the same time, economies are very different and the models describing them must have much freedom for diversity in internal structure. These simple ideas are the foundation of a gradually evolving consortium of input-output models and their builders. By working together, much time can be saved by avoiding repetitious programming and very little freedom lost in model specification. What could never be done by one group may perhaps be accomplished together. Models are presently available for Japan, the United States, Canada, Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Britain. Models of Hungary and the Netherlands are under construction. Groups in Austria, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, and the German Democratic Republic expect to begin work on members of the family in the near future. This paper describes the steps in the construction of a national model in this family; it explains how scenarios may be specified and shows typical structures of the real and the price sides of these models. The plan for the international linking system is explained and progress towards its realization described.
: During the summer of 1998, a group of independent experts was convened at the request of the Pr... more : During the summer of 1998, a group of independent experts was convened at the request of the President of the Institute for Defense Analyses to review IDA's work in developing the computer-based simulation game known as Synthetic Environments for National Security Estimates (SENSE). These experts were selected because of their recognized credentials in the fields of macroeconomics, the economics of transition economies, psychology and conflict resolution, and on-the-ground international aid activities. The panel observed and played SENSE games, and reviewed its technical underpinnings.
Two ways of making a product-to-product table are commonly recognized, one based on the product-t... more Two ways of making a product-to-product table are commonly recognized, one based on the product-technology assumption and the other on the industry-technology assumption. The second is recognized as highly implausible but is often used because the first frequently leads to small negative flows which make no economic sense. This paper shows how a slight adjustment in the product-technology assumption leads to an algorithm that is certain to avoid negative flows yet keep close to the spirit of the product- technology assumption. Some details of the application of this method to the USA table for 1992 are reported. Similar applications to every American table since 1958 have given consistently sensible results. A computer program for the method is included.
The Inforum international system connects multisectoral macroeconomic models of twelve major indu... more The Inforum international system connects multisectoral macroeconomic models of twelve major industrial countries via a model of bilateral trade flows at the level of 120 products. For this paper, the historical data and the forecasts to 2010 for seven of the countries - Italy, France, Spain, Germany, USA, Japan, and China - have been aggregated to 34 fairly comparable industries. The shifts in the industrial structure of employment between 1980 and 1995 are compared both among the countries and with the further shifts expected between 1995 and 2010. The countries are becoming more similar in that the share of agriculture in all of them is diminishing. In the structure of non-agricultural employment, however, they appear to be diverging. After pointing out a "low-tech drift" in the structure of Italian employment and a simultaneous drop in Italy's investment/GDP ratio, the paper asks: To what extent could Italy influence its industrial structure by increasing investmen...
"Burst of Fall" is a 1968 painting by the Alma W. Thomas, and African-American woman pa... more "Burst of Fall" is a 1968 painting by the Alma W. Thomas, and African-American woman painter of the Washington Color school. This brief note describes the circumstances of its origin and of its initial purchase. It includes as jpg image of the painting.
This is the story in tutorial form of the creation of a program, Gwx, for building economic model... more This is the story in tutorial form of the creation of a program, Gwx, for building economic models, both macroeconomic and multisectoral. The program closely resembles the G7 program. Like G7, it is written in C++ but it is built with free, open-source, cross-platform tools. There are many books about how to use some specific computer program but few about what was going on in the mind of the designer and programmer as the project evolved, as problems emerged and were solve. This is such a book. The program, Gwx, is designed to be used with the author's book, The Craft of Economic Modeling.
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