This paper describes some of the results of an analysis of new software technology, which can be used to develop microsimulation models. Searching for microsimulation software development environment, the author concludes that opportunities of contemporary software technology are not exhausted; Web-based application development could provide better software architecture while fulfilling user re...

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of social modelling, and in particular a general introduction to and insight into the potential role and usefulness of microsimulation in analysing public policy. Despite having made a major contribution to the development of tax and cash transfer policies, there are many important areas of government policy to which microsimulation has not yet be...

In this paper, we present a dynamic simulation model which projects the future population of the city of Leeds as a basis for policy analysis and scenario planning. We argue that microsimulation modelling is not entirely effective in the representation of student populations. Alternative approaches using both spatial interaction models and student agents are presented and evaluated. The results...

While econometric models routinely incorporate unobserved heterogeneity, microsimulations that are based on historical data rarely do so. At issue is that an individual’s history of outcomes contains information about that person’s heterogeneity draw, implying that the individual’s value may not be drawn randomly from the population distribution. Failure to account for heterogeneity may bias be...

Many of the social policy challenges facing the modern welfare state are long-term in nature, particularly the threats to future fiscal sustainability caused by population ageing. In such an environment, dynamic population microsimulation models provide one of the most useful available modelling tools for projecting the likely future distributional consequences of possible policy changes. Howev...

In this paper the continuous-time competing-risk approach to dynamic microsimulation modelling and approaches based on a discrete-time framework are compared in a systematic way. Besides the basic modelling approaches the possibilities to extend the models to include quantitative and qualitative dependent variables, to use macroeconomic explanatory variables, and to account for dependencies bet...

This paper attempts to use microsimulation methods to compare returns to education in four European countries, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom. This paper broadens the type of measure used to measure the return to education to include interactions with public taxtransfer systems and to consider the effect of differential employment rates on education. Mincer style wage equations ...