SimPaths: an open-source microsimulation model for life course analysis

Publication type

Journal Article

Series Number

Authors

Publication date

April 30, 2025

Abstract:

The paper introduces SimPaths, an open-source framework for individual and household life course events. The framework is designed to project life histories through time, building up a detailed picture of career paths, family (inter)relations, health, and financial circumstances. The modular nature of the SimPaths framework is designed to facilitate analysis of alternative assumptions concerning the tax and benefit system, sensitivity to parameter estimates and alternative approaches for projecting labour/leisure and consumption/savings decisions. SimPaths builds upon standardised assumptions and data sources, which facilitates adaptation to alternative countries – models based on the framework currently exist for the UK, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, and are under development for Germany, Spain and Sweden. Projections for a workhorse model parameterised to the UK context are reported, which closely reflect observed data throughout a validation window between the Financial crisis (2011) and the Covid-19 pandemic (2019).

Published in

International Journal of Microsimulation

Volume and page numbers

Volume: 18 , p.95 -133

DOI

https://doi.org/10.34196/ijm.00318

ISSN

17475864

Subjects

#588868

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