SimPaths: an open-source microsimulation model for life course analysis
Authors
Patryk Bronka, Justin van de Ven, Daniel Kopasker, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, Matteo Richiardi
Publication Date
Apr 2025
Abstract
The paper introduces SimPaths, an open-source framework for individual and household life course events. The framework is designed to project life histories through time, building up a detailed picture of career paths, family (inter)relations, health, and financial circumstances. The modular nature of the SimPaths framework is designed to facilitate analysis of alternative assumptions concerning the tax and benefit system, sensitivity to parameter estimates and alternative approaches for projecting labour/leisure and consumption/savings decisions. SimPaths builds upon standardised assumptions and data sources, which facilitates adaptation to alternative countries – models based on the framework currently exist for the UK, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, and are under development for Germany, Spain and Sweden. Projections for a workhorse model parameterised to the UK context are reported, which closely reflect observed data throughout a validation window between the Financial crisis (2011) and the Covid-19 pandemic (2019).
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 18 , p.95 -133
DOI
https://doi.org/10.34196/ijm.00318
Publication type
Journal Article
Research areas
Family and gender, Health and wellbeing, Population changes and labour market dynamics, Tax and benefit systems
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