IIASA co-organized the Digital Twin and Macro-ABM International Workshop in Korea

Sebastian Poledna, Leader of the Exploratory Modeling Research Group within the Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Program, made a keynote speech to kick off the workshop about IIASA's latest innovations in macro agent based modeling. The IIASA-invented model simulates dynamic interactions of households, businesses, and government institutions, and provides a clearer picture of how policy choices can affect the economy in both the short and long term. Dr. Poledna’s talk highlighted the model's capacity for economic forecasting, assessing impacts like inflation, natural disasters, and migration, generating insights for data-informed policy. 

Presentations covered a range of timely topics, including:

• Economic Forecasting with an Agent-Based Model – insights into predicting economic trends
• Leveraging Microdata in Agent-Based Modeling for Impact Assessment 
• Macro-ABM Nowcasting – real-time analysis for improved decision-making
• Separation and Disaggregation of Government Expenditures in the IIASA Macro ABM – examining new approaches to modeling public finances.
• Data and AI-based Policy Decision Making
• Data and Complex Systems Science

The event was hosted by ETRI, with whom IIASA recently started a new partnership to develop agent-based models for fiscal policy analysis. As co-organizer, Dr. Poledna also contributed as moderator for an afternoon session. ETRI, the local co-host institution, is one of the world-leading research institutes in ICT and convergence technologies. It is a non-profit, government-funded organization with thousands of patents filed, standards adopted and papers published. It contributes to Korea’s economic and social development through research, development and distribution of industrial core technologies in the field of Information, Communications, Electronics, Broadcasting and Convergence technologies. It was therefore the perfect partner to promote IIASA's Macro ABM to a wider audience. 

The workshop was attended by guests and speakers from other important institutions in audience, namely, OECD, IITP, WIFO, FPI Korea, KDI School, KAIST, Chosun, AJOU, FSS and CNU. Workshops like these bring together like minds in different domains to cross-reference and underline the value of multidisciplinary approaches in developing practical tools for national policy analysis, contributing to more effective and informed decision-making.

Reference: 

Poledna, S., Miess, M.G., Hommes, C., & Rabitsch, K. (2022). Economic forecasting with an agent-based model. European Economic Review 151 e104306. 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104306.