ISER experts in microsimulation have been working closely with colleagues in Colombia on the development of a new tax-benefit model for the country, COLMOD, based on EUROMOD, the model developed at ISER. International and Colombian experts presented their research on microsimulations and discussed their importance for the current debate on poverty and inequality in Colombia at an an international conference on Public Policies to Tackle Poverty and Inequality, in Bogotá.
The microsimulation model for Colombia, COLMOD, was introduced to an audience of academics and policy makers, with a training session on the use of EUROMOD for researchers, analysts and officials from several public institutions including the Finance Ministry (Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público), the Central Bank (Banco de la República) and the National Planning Department (Departamento Nacional de Planeación).
The conference included sessions with contributed papers on microsimulation research on countries around the world and a panel discussion including Roberto Angulo (Colombian Development Plan coordinator) Monica Ospina (Professor of Public Finances at the Department of Economics, Universidad EAFIT) and Xavier Jara (Research Economist at ISER at University of Essex), chaired by Federico Corredor (Lecturer at Externado).
Describing the benefits of research using microsimulation, Roberto Angulo said:
“It is not possible to build bridges between public policy and frontier knowledge without the use of microdata and microsimulations. The value added of simulation models is that these help to keep public policies implementation accountable”.
Mónica Ospina highlighted that “In this country, the academic community commonly discusses new tax reforms, but seldom its empirical evidence. Consequently, microsimulations improve the quality of the debate in terms of the consequences that tax reforms could have on wellbeing”.