Increasing the Impact of Dynamic Microsimulation Modelling

Abstract

This paper considers the degree of progress made by the field of dynamic microsimulation over the past five decades. It highlights the expanding breadth of the field, both in terms of the number of countries and in terms of the broadening policy area. It also outlines concerns in relation to lack of emphasis historically in relation to the transmission of codified and in the sometimes proprietary ownership model. Moving forward, an improved focus on the codification and peer review of methodologies used in the field is suggested. In terms of tacit knowledge transmission, the organisation of more regional meetings of the International Microsimulation Association is encouraged. In terms of future areas for model development, the opportunities are to incorporate behaviour to a greater extent, utilise more data in the big data revolution, to increase the field of microsimulation into new policy areas, and to share code and work in networks. Finally, the role of peer review is highlighted.

A generic business process model for conducting microsimulation studies

“…Continuous dynamics typically require far-reaching assumptions on conditional transition rates, but are generally capable of displaying highly complex temporal event dependencies. For deeper insights into dynamic microsimulation modeling, see for example Li and O'Donoghue (2013), O'Donoghue and Dekkers (2018), and Willekens (2017).…”

“…The most relevant data sources are administrative data, census data, household, and survey data, as well as synthetic data (Li and O'Donoghue, 2013). The use of big data sources is not yet established in the microsimulation literature, but marks a relevant option for future research (O'Donoghue and Dekkers, 2018).…”

“…Microsimulation studies represent a powerful tool for the multivariate analysis of populations (Merz, 1993;O'Donoghue, 2001;O'Donoghue and Dekkers, 2018;Burgard et al, 2019a). While macrosimulation methods are limited to selected population characteristics on an aggregated level, microsimulation methods are capable of considering individual characteristics and interactions.…”

“…As a result, microsimulations are increasingly applied for the analysis of complex systems. Exemplary applications are provided by Bourguignon and Spadaro (2006), Pichon-Riviere et al (2011), Li and O'Donoghue (2013), Markham et al (2017), O'Donoghue and Dekkers (2018), and Burgard et al (2020).…”

Population synthesis for travel demand modelling in Australian capital cities

“…Synthetic populations have been integrated into travel demand models developed overseas as discussed in Chapter 1. In Australia, several research groups are working on possible methods to integrate a synthetic population to another model in the social economic domain ( (Hérault 2010;Rao;Tanton, Perez, & Pettit, 2017;Tanton & Vidyattama 2015, 2018. Integrating a synthetic population to another model not only adds value to the existing data collection but also provides a spatial perspective for a study population in the region.…”