Model Overview
The MyGTAP suite is comprised of a modified version of the GTAP model and a data tool, which facilitates splitting the regional household and factors in the GTAP model into multiple households and factors. MyGTAP further augments the standard GTAP data flows with foreign aid, labor remittances, and foreign capital income. These features are all bundled within the RunGTAP interface.
How it Works
Figure 1. Standard GTAP Model Flows
(click to make larger)
The standard GTAP Model utilizes a “regional household,” which gathers all income from taxes, and factor returns and distributes these incomes into three entities: the private household, government, and savings\investment (figure 1).
The MyGTAP model and data program provide a framework to eliminate the regional household and replace it with distinct representations of households and government linked directly to their income sources, and tying these incomes to expenditures.
The model further provides the ability to expand the private household into multiple households, so distributional impacts are ascertained (figure 2). Government income, expenditure, and deficits are endogenously calculated and are explicit.
A key feature of MyGTAP is the ability to re-specify the factors of production, land, labor, and capital to correspond more closely with the redefined private household sources of income. MyGTAP facilitates the specification of factor “ownership” shares for each household, thereby creating a link between factor income and household income (figure 3.)
Figure 3. MyGTAP Factor and Household Income Linkages
MyGTAP Presentation