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Introducing the comparative open-source model microWELT

This tutorial introduces the microWELT model and modular modelling platform for comparative dynamic microsimulation. MicroWELT is a portable, continuous time interacting population model built to work with readily available data for many countries, and it supports optional alignment to aggregate targets. It is “X-compatible”: the same model code can be compiled using Modgen or the open-source openM++ environment. As documented on the project website www.microWELT.eu, the model is also extendable to refined national applications such as the microDEMS model, which applies the same platform to an Austrian setting using detailed longitudinal administrative records, illustrating how the shared core can be refined when richer data are available.

Tutorial session: Analysing tax-benefit reform impacts with PolicyEngine

What do you want to teach? This hands-on tutorial introduces participants to PolicyEngine, a free, open-source microsimulation platform for analysing tax and benefit policy reforms in the US and UK. Participants will learn to use PolicyEngines web interface (policyengine.org) to: (1) model a tax or benefit reform by adjusting policy parameters, (2) compute hypothetical household impacts showing how the reform affects a hypothetical households taxes, benefits, and net income, (3) run population-level microsimulation analysis to estimate budgetary cost or revenue, distributional effects across income deciles, poverty impacts, and winner/loser breakdowns, and (4) use PolicyEngines AI assistant (a Claude Code plugin) to conduct policy analysis from natural language prompts, including generating charts, policy briefs, and congressional district or constituency-level breakdowns. The session will use live examples relevant to current policy debates in both the US and UK.