Chapter 3: Static Models

Social science microsimulation models are usually categorised as ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. Static models take individual characteristics and behaviours as exogenous. These models are commonly used to evaluate the immediate distributional impact upon individuals/households of possible policy changes, for example EUROMOD (Mantovani, Papadopoulos, Sutherland, & Tsakloglou, 2007). Static models are thus commonly referred to as models that estimate the day after impact of a policy reform ignoring the behavioural response impact due to policy. The literature describing the design of static microsimulation models is large and has existed for a relatively long time (Citro & Hanushek, 1991a, 1991b; Hoschka, 1986; Merz, 1991; Sutherland, 1995).