How new data sources are changing policy modelling

Microsimulation Webinar Series

The Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and the International Microsimulation Association (IMA) would like to invite you to the joint LISER-NUIG-IMA Microsimulation and Inequality Global Webinar Series that takes place on the 2^nd Thursday of every month at 14:00 Luxembourg time (08:00 Washington, 22:00 Sydney) .

This seminar aims to bring together the latest research using microsimulation techniques or addressing social inequalities. It provides a forum for networking, for discussing current research and for getting feedback from peers in the field in a friendly and supportive environment. It is targeted both at academics and public policy analysists.

The new seminar series will be launched on Teams on June 10, 2021 by Professor Robert Tanton from University of Canberra and the President of the International Microsimulation Association (IMA).

How new data sources are changing policy modelling

Recent advances in technology, data storage and access to data have meant that a much wider variety of data is now available for policy modelling. This type of data includes administrative data; consumer data; data from online surveys; and big data (phone records, transport records, bank records, etc).

While many policy models still start with survey data, we are finding ourselves more and more using these new data sources as benchmarks, to update the models.

In Australia during COVID, where current data was required quickly to analyse the social and economic impacts of the pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Statistics started to publish income data from the business Tax systems (payroll data) which were only a few weeks old. This was then used in different policy models to analyse the impacts of COVID on inequality. Many of these use what is called a “nowcasting” approach. These nowcasting approaches are becoming popular internationally, bringing together very current administrative and other less current data that is still required in the model. The availability of current data for low income people meant Australian researchers could model current estimates of the levels of poverty and inequality in Australia. This was important during a global pandemic like COVID.

This seminar will show the importance of these new data sources for policy modelling; show how they have been used to measure inequality; and then discuss how these new sources of data can be brought into the policy process, and what academics and policy analysts might need to think about as this happens.

To register to the seminar series, please contact our Office Manager, Mrs. Axelle Depireux, axelle.depireux@liser.lu.

For further information, please contact the seminar co-organizers: