GTAP (the Global Trade Analysis Project) is a global network of researchers
(mostly from universities, international organizations, and economic and climate/resource ministries of governments) who conduct quantitative analysis of
international economic policy issues, including trade policy,
climate policy,
and globalization linkages to inequality and employment. The consortium produces a consistent global economic database (the GTAP Data Base) which is widely used in the research community to study prospective international economic policy around these issues.
While the consortium includes a large number of international organizations,
GTAP itself is coordinated by the Center for Global Trade Analysis, located at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
.
GTAP consortium and data base
Founded by Thomas Hertel
in 1992, the project grew out of the Australian IMPACT and SALTER modelling projects, and was heavily influenced by Alan Powell.
It is currently directed by Dominique van der Mensbrugghe.
A central element of GTAP is a large-scale database that is updated periodically by the consortium members, under coordination of the Center for Global Trade Analysis. The data are important, core structural inputs to a broad range of global economic policy models and related applications:
studies of climate change and resource use (including studies feeding into the
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...
process); regional economic integration; and the effects of globalization.
[ For this reason, the consortium membership (those contributing to the database) includes prominent global governance and policy research institutions like the ]World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
, World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...
, International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...
, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the United Nations General Assembl ...
, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
.input output
In computing, input/output (I/O, i/o, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, such as another computer system, peripherals, or a human operator. Informatio ...
(MRIO) database supplemented by national macroeconomic data, though extensive satellite datasets cover other measures that are linked to the economic flows in the core database, including trade policies, greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, migration flows, and land use patterns. While from its inception the database was closely tied to the computable general equilibrium
Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are a class of economic models that use actual economic data to estimate how an economy might react to changes in policy, technology or other external factors. CGE models are also referred to as AGE ( app ...
(CGE) research community, in recent years the database has also been at the center of greenhouse gas emissions accounting exercises,
Other activities
In addition to the multinational effort needed to update and expand the project database, the Center for Global Trade Analysis also offers courses on practical, model-based economic policy analysis. This includes courses on basic computational modelling
Computer simulation is the running of a mathematical model on a computer, the model being designed to represent the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be determin ...
and dynamic general equilibrium modelling. The standard GTAP Model, which serves as a maquete or framework model linking the database to a basic general equilibrium system, was developed with the GEMPACK suite of software
Technical references
*Burfisher, Mary, Introduction to Computable General Equilibrium Models, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2011, .
*Corong, Erwin L. et al. (2017) "The Standard GTAP Model, Version 7." ''Journal of Global Economic Analysis,'' Vol2(1): 1–119.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Economics societies
Research institutes established in 1992
Economic research institutes
Purdue University