Overview

This course is targeted to any economist who would like introductory course in computable general equilibrium modelling. The course is also targeted to those with no or limited knowledge of GAMS which is widely used in development of CGEs. Why CGE modelling: Authorities re usually faced with what if questions in their policy discourse. CGEs are tools that are most ideal to answer such questions as what will happen if government for example changed tax rates, increases tariffs, world prices changed etc. These models can be static or dynamic in implementation.

Course objective: 

The course will introduce all the basic tools for constructing and implementing large-scale applied general equilibrium models for policy analysis. By the end of the course the participants will have acquired detailed knowledge of and extensive hands-on experience in:

• the structure of open economy general equilibrium models,
• building the database for such models,
• building social accounting matrices,
• calibrating a CGE model,
• formulating a CGE model as a non linear programming problem,
• formulating a CGE model as a mixed complementarity problem,
• implementing the model on the computer using the GAMS software,
• using the solvers CONOPT, MINOS, PATH, and PATHNLP,
• modeling the labor market,
• formulating scenarios and running policy simulations,
• reporting and interpreting the results,
• linking GAMS and Excel for reading and reporting data