Dr Xavier Jara, Research Fellow at ISER, co-author of the research with Marcelo Varela from the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales in Ecuador, has led the development of the new model and this is the first significant study to highlight the use of ECUAMOD for policy analysis. 

The research explores the redistributive effects of taxes and benefits in Ecuador using two different approaches: direct use of reported taxes and benefits in household survey data, and the use of simulated taxes and benefits obtained from ECUAMOD.  The study found that simulated taxes and social insurance contributions capture better the number of taxpayers and aggregate revenue amounts from official statistics than information taken directly from the data. They also found that using reported data on taxes and social insurance contributions underestimates their redistributive effect in comparison with simulated policies. The paper discusses the factors behind the differences between the two approaches and concludes with a discussion of the advantages offered by microsimulation for policy analysis.

ECUAMOD is developed, maintained, and managed by UNU-WIDER in collaboration with the EUROMOD team at ISER  at the University of Essex, SASPRI (Southern African Social Policy Research Insights), and local partners in selected developing countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Ecuador, and Viet Nam) within the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The local partner for ECUAMOD is the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN).