Policy Design

The power to plan intelligent policy

ADRS models were created to provide critical foresight into policy choices and to enhance policy design. Economic decision-making is improved by identifying likely outcomes and minimizing the risk of unforeseen consequences. Users create specific policy scenarios and simulate their impact to create better policy design that is likely to produce the desired outcomes.

Our global multi-sector macroeconomic models allow users to design alternative policy scenarios at national and sector levels for growth, investment, government expenditure, exports and imports.

Our suite of South African models can be used to design and simulate a wide array of macroeconomic and microeconomic policy issues. Our suite of South African economic models and their policy design capabilities:

MACROECONOMIC MODEL OF SOUTH AFRICA (MEMSATM) is a large multi-sector macro-econometric model that captures the structure and the working of the South African economy. It enables the design and analyses of macroeconomic and industrial policies and produces projections of key indicators related to the economy and its economic sectors under various domestic and international contexts and policy options.

SOUTH AFRICAN PROVINCIAL ECONOMIC MODELS (LNP-MODELSTM) capture the working of each provincial economy, including its links to the rest of South Africa. Users are able to design "what-if" scenarios related to national and international factors that impact provincial economies and policy measures controlled by provincial governments. The models simulate the impact of the “what-if” scenarios and provide projections of indicators related to macroeconomic and industry performance, taxation, social security, poverty and income distribution for each of the nine provinces in South Africa. The models are most suitable for forecasting the impact of national level policies on provincial economies and the national and provincial impact of provincial measures.

SOUTH AFRICAN DISTRICT AND MUNICIPALITY ECONOMIC MODELS (MUN-MODELSTM) capture the links between national and provincial economic performance and South African districts and municipalities. Users are able to design a wide range of national and provincial micro- and macroeconomic “what-if” scenarios and simulate their likely future impact at district and municipal level. The model produces projections of key demographic, economic and welfare indicators for each district and municipality within a province.

SKILLS AND OCCUPATION MODEL (LM-EMTM) captures the interactions between the economy and the education sector in South Africa, to create a platform for skills demand and supply planning. LM-EM™ depicts the working of the economy and the education sector by combining economics, demographic and education data with state-of-the- art modelling techniques to capture key interactions and interdependencies in the economy, including the links between the labour market and the education sector. The model provides a platform to design “what-if” scenarios related to economic and education policies and simulate their likely impact. It produces forecasts of key economic and industry indicators, employment for 45 economic sectors, distribution of employment among SETAs, job openings, job seekers, and labour market balances, all classified by occupation and educational qualification.

SOCIAL SECURITY MODELS OF SOUTH AFRICA (SATTSIM-SSTMTM) capture the interactions between the economy, households and government’s transfer policies. A micro-simulation model and a linked macro-micro model of social security enable users to design diverse economic and social security policy scenarios and quantitatively assess their future economic, poverty and inequality impacts by province, ethnicity, family type, quintile and locality. In addition to the government’s current social grant programme, the models include modules on youth and adult unemployment grants, care-giver grants, and basic income grant that can be used to design forward looking “what-if” scenarios related to social security policy in South Africa.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT TAX SIMULATION MODELS (SATTSIM-TAXTM) include a micro-simulation of household income and expenditure, and a linked macro-micro model. The models capture the interactions between the economy, households and government’s direct and indirect tax policies. The model enables users to design diverse forward looking “what-if” scenarios related to the nexus between the economy and taxation, simulate their impact, and produce projections of economic, poverty and inequality indicators by province, race, family type, quintile and locality.

DYNAMICALLY INTEGRATED MACRO-MICRO SIMULATION MODEL (DIMMSIMTM) captures the dynamic interactions between macroeconomic performance and poverty and income distribution at the household level. It includes two-way interactions between its macro and micro components such that (a) changes in macroeconomic variables (e.g., prices, employment, wage rates) influence the welfare of individuals and families, and (b) changes in household level economic conditions (e.g., poverty, inequality, taxes, demand for social grants) influence macroeconomic outcomes. DIMMSIMTM is most suitable for the comprehensive developmental assessment (e.g., growth, employment, poverty, inequality) of alternative sets of composite macroeconomic, industry, poverty and distribution policy scenarios.

PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT MODEL OF SOUTH AFRICA (PEM-SATMTM) enables examination of alternative scenarios for the expanded public works programme (EPWP) and its economic and welfare impact. The breadth of possible scenarios ranges from fixed annual targets for EPWP job opportunities to testing possible extensions of the programme to operate as an employer of last resort.

POVERTY-INEQUALITY MODEL OF SOUTH AFRICA (PIM-SATMTM) captures the links between household poverty and inequality and macroeconomics (e.g., growth, employment, inflation, wages), industrial transformation, taxation and social security. The model generates projections of poverty and inequality by race, gender, province, family type, quintile and locality (i.e., urban and non-urban).