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On Saturday 04 October 2008 21:42, Simon Waters wrote: > Tom Potts wrote: > > On Saturday 04 October 2008 10:57, Henry Bremridge wrote: > >> On Sat, Oct 04, 2008 at 09:18:31AM +0100, Tom Potts wrote: > >>> Now I've stopped crowing about how the credit crunch was obvious I'm on > >>> the lookout for open source economic models to play with on my PC. > >>> Anyone seen any? > >> > >> Silly question perhaps but modelling what? > > > > Er .. the Economy - money flow etc. > > The sort of thing that, when you plug in cancelling the 10% tax band > > would leave 2million out of pocket. > > UK tax detail, so a UK model? > > > The sort of thing that would say - oh house prices are collapsing so $200 > > trillion of leveraged 'capital' will evaporate. > > 200 trillion USD - hmm so a global model. I think they run one at Oxford > Economics. > > > The sort of thing you would expect an olevel government to have so it > > would get an idea of the effect of its economic policies - not 100% > > accurate but like a short range weather forecast. > > "Short range" in weather forecasting is typically under 18 hours - > usually these are very accurate because it is little more than > extrapolation, plus developing a few thunderstorms. > > But a key point is that we understand the laws behind weather a lot > better than the economy, and CO2 concentrations aside, we are fairly > confident the laws that govern the weather don't change with time, and > also fairly sure that the laws governing the economy change with > technical progress. I feel that here we have an opportunity to 'test' some 'theories'. I've always liked the idea of an true internet 'bank' - somewhere in the web where you can organise transactions online, the charge being the minimum currency unit. I reckon 1p per transaction would raise a lot of dosh for what is essentially an afternoons coding and a £2.99 p month web site and simple db. Or you could still pay your profit margin through paypal..... Tom te tom te tom > > The treasury still use lots of models as far as I know. > > Online closed model - simplified treasury model. > > http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/economy/ > > Fortran code for modelling from Yale. > > http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/main.htm > > But I fear most macroeconomic modelling is done to help provide > empirical support for ideas in economics, rather than for elucidating > the future. I suspect if you find a "policy" that produces great results > from macroeconomic models, it probably says more about the model, than > about the likely effectiveness of that policy. > > Thatcher's ignoring of the established economic models at the treasury > probably explains the terrible economic performance of Britain under her > period, but don't say it too loud when Tories are around, as like Mother > Teresa, and the Pope, she is above criticism. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html