Economic Models For Policy Making

Over the past decades, many different kinds of models have been developed that have been of use to policy makers, but until now the different approaches have not been brought together with a view to enhancing the systematic unification and evaluation of these models. This new volume aims to fill this gap by bringing together four decades’ worth of work by S. I. Cohen on economic modelling for policy making. Work on older models has been rewritten and brought fully up to date, and these older models have therefore been brought back to the fore, both to assess how they influenced more recent models and to see how they could be used today. The focus of the book is on models for development policies in developing economies, but there are some chapters that relate to economic policies in transition and developed economies. The policy areas covered are of typical interest in developing and transition economies. They include those relating to trade liberalization reforms, sustainable development, industrial development, agrarian reform, growth and distribution, human resource development and education, public goods and income transfers. Each chapter contains a brief assessment of the empirical literature on the economic effects of the policy measures discussed in the chapter. The book presents a platform of economic modelling that can serve as a refresher for practising professionals, as well as a reference companion for graduates engaging in economic modelling and policy preparations.

Over the past decades, many different kinds of models have been developed that have been of use to policy makers, but until now the different approaches have not been brought together with a view to enhancing the systematic unification and evaluation of these models. This new volume aims to fill this gap by bringing together four decades’ worth of work by S. I. Cohen on economic modelling for policy making. Work on older models has been rewritten and brought fully up to date, and these older models have therefore been brought back to the fore, both to assess how they influenced more recent models and to see how they could be used today. The focus of the book is on models for development policies in developing economies, but there are some chapters that relate to economic policies in transition and developed economies. The policy areas covered are of typical interest in developing and transition economies. They include those relating to trade liberalization reforms, sustainable development, industrial development, agrarian reform, growth and distribution, human resource development and education, public goods and income transfers. Each chapter contains a brief assessment of the empirical literature on the economic effects of the policy measures discussed in the chapter. The book presents a platform of economic modelling that can serve as a refresher for practising professionals, as well as a reference companion for graduates engaging in economic modelling and policy preparations.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. The book examines the methodological challenges in analyzing the effectiveness of development policies. It presents a selection of tools and methodologies that can help tackle the complexities of which policies work best and why, and how they can be implemented effectively given the political and economic framework conditions of a country. The contributions in this book offer a continuation of the ongoing evidence-based debate on the role of agriculture and participatory policy processes in reducing poverty. They develop and apply quantitative political economy approaches by integrating quantitative models of political decision-making into existing economic modeling tools, allowing a more comprehensive growth-poverty analysis. The book addresses not only scholars who use quantitative policy modeling and evaluation techniques in their empirical or theoretical research, but also technical experts, including policy makers and analysts from stakeholder organizations, involved in formulating and implementing policies to reduce poverty and to increase economic and social well-being in African countries.

It has been held that when economic policy makers use economic models, there is a one way flow of information from the models to policy analysis. This text challenges this assumption, recognizing that policy makers play an important role in the development and revision of those very models.

project was the development and application of a model of central and local government behavior. It was carried out in collaboration with the Dutch Department of Home Affairs, during the period September 1985 - April 1987. The project's aim was the study of the determinants of local government decisionmaking in the Netherlands and the implications of so-called intergovernmental relations for local government behavior. During that project I was assisted by Sander Helder and Marc Tigche1aar. The results of that project appeared in a book, co-authored by Frans van Winden, entitled Gemeentefinancien en Gedecentra1iseerde. Bes1uitvorming(Loca1 Public Finance and Decentralized Decisionmaking). This book is, for the time being, the end product of my research on government behavior. Much more research is needed on the study of government behavior and the application of models which, from an economic point of view, focus on the implications of the interaction between economics and politics. The knowledge of this process is not only interesting as such, but also from a practical point of view. without a good positive analysis of the behavior of the government in modern industrialized economies it is neither possible to see through its operations nor to use its policies as an effective instrument in the pursuit of economic targets.

This book at once introduces the entire area of adaptive modeling and precisely defines a new decision-making procedure for developing and using models of large, complex socioeconomic systems.

In financially constrained health systems across the world, increasing emphasis is being placed on the ability to demonstrate that health care interventions are not only effective, but also cost-effective. This book deals with decision modelling techniques that can be used to estimate the value for money of various interventions including medical devices, surgical procedures, diagnostic technologies, and pharmaceuticals. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of the appropriate representation of uncertainty in the evaluative process and the implication this uncertainty has for decision making and the need for future research. This highly practical guide takes the reader through the key principles and approaches of modelling techniques. It begins with the basics of constructing different forms of the model, the population of the model with input parameter estimates, analysis of the results, and progression to the holistic view of models as a valuable tool for informing future research exercises. Case studies and exercises are supported with online templates and solutions. This book will help analysts understand the contribution of decision-analytic modelling to the evaluation of health care programmes. ABOUT THE SERIES: Economic evaluation of health interventions is a growing specialist field, and this series of practical handbooks will tackle, in-depth, topics superficially addressed in more general health economics books. Each volume will include illustrative material, case histories and worked examples to encourage the reader to apply the methods discussed, with supporting material provided online. This series is aimed at health economists in academia, the pharmaceutical industry and the health sector, those on advanced health economics courses, and health researchers in associated fields.

An introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risk and economic decisions, using spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty. This textbook offers an introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risks and economic decisions. It takes a learn-by-doing approach, teaching the student to use spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty and to analyze the effect of such uncertainty on an economic decision. Students in applied business and economics can more easily grasp difficult analytical methods with Excel spreadsheets. The book covers the basic ideas of probability, how to simulate random variables, and how to compute conditional probabilities via Monte Carlo simulation. The first four chapters use a large collection of probability distributions to simulate a range of problems involving worker efficiency, market entry, oil exploration, repeated investment, and subjective belief elicitation. The book then covers correlation and multivariate normal random variables; conditional expectation; optimization of decision variables, with discussions of the strategic value of information, decision trees, game theory, and adverse selection; risk sharing and finance; dynamic models of growth; dynamic models of arrivals; and model risk. New material in this second edition includes two new chapters on additional dynamic models and model risk; new sections in every chapter; many new end-of-chapter exercises; and coverage of such topics as simulation model workflow, models of probabilistic electoral forecasting, and real options. The book comes equipped with Simtools, an open-source, free software used througout the book, which allows students to conduct Monte Carlo simulations seamlessly in Excel.