Training for using ECUAMOD, the new tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ecuador, based on ISER’s model, EUROMOD, was recently held at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN) in Quito. The course was led by Dr H. Xavier Jara from ISER in collaboration with Marcelo Varela, Mauricio Cuesta, and César Amores from the IAEN. Participants included representatives from a wide spread of government institutions, including the Central Bank and the Ministries of Economic Policy and Finance, as well as local universities.
The event was organized as part of the UNU-WIDER-funded SOUTHMOD project, which financed the development of ECUAMOD and microsimulation models for selected developing countries to analyse the effects of tax and benefit policy scenarios, based on EUROMOD, ISER’s microsimulation model for the EU28 countries.
ISER researchers, led by Professor Holly Sutherland, play a key role in SOUTHMOD: The Economics and Politics of Taxation and Social Protection – a research and development project based on our successful tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD. EUROMOD is funded by the European Commission and is a complex model which allows researchers to model the impact of tax and benefit changes in 28 EU member states, allowing analysis at a country level and for cross-country comparison. EUROMOD is now used widely by policy makers to track the potential impact of tax or benefit policy changes on people’s lives.
Working alongside South African Social Policy Insights (SASPRI), members of the EUROMOD team at ISER have begun work on the ambitious project which will build tax-benefit microsimulation models, based on the EUROMOD platform, for a selection of developing countries. These models will collectively be known as SOUTHMOD.
The main focus of the project will be on Africa where microsimulation models will be constructed for Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. These new models will complement existing models for South Africa (SAMOD) and Namibia (NAMOD), which are also based on EUROMOD and have been put together by SASPRI. To provide further comparability, a model was built for one country from Latin America (Ecuador) and initial scoping for one country from Asia (Vietnam) will be undertaken.