[open-economics] Evolutionary economics and open economics

Fri Jul 8 16:26:29 UTC 2011

Dear list,

Just wanted to post an update so we're all on the same page.

We had an informal meeting with Dr Hans-Peter Brunner, Senior
Economist at the Asian Development Bank today and spoke about
different ways of cooperation. Dr Brunner has developed an agent-based
macroeconomic model which - once calibrated with data - simulates
effects of different policies on economic outcomes, e.g. the impact of
regional integration on sector-specific economic activity. See
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1808652> for more
details.

Dr Brunner is interested in opening up his simulation program, feed in
richer datasets (for now, the simulations are only confined to a few
countries but could be extended), and generate community-driven
participation to ensure that the development of the application is
sustained. We, as the OKF, would provide the necessary infrastructure
and tools to stimulate community participation. The idea was to
discuss possibilities of teaming up, with us providing the platform
and the ADB as a partner. Ideally, we will also receive funding to
coordinate this.

Dr Brunner has also generously offered to join the advisory board of
the Open Economics WG.

This project is a great opportunity - opening up such a simulation
program would enable non-professionals to experiment with different
policies, examine the impact of changing assumptions and parameters
(more transparency). At the same time, it might attract students and
other researchers interested in agent-based modelling: In this case,
open data would be a means towards an end - rendering economic
research more open and getting the public involved.

We are considering to assemble a small task force to brainstorm and
discuss ways of cooperation. The code is written in Java, so it would
be great if someone with programming experience could join to have a
look at the code. Looking forward to your comments!

Thanks a lot,

Guo Xu