Overview of REMI Policy Insight
REMI Policy Insight's unique power is to generate realistic year-by-year estimates of the total regional effects of any specific policy initiative. A wide range of policy variables allows the user to represent the policy to be evaluated while the explicit structure in the model helps the user to interpret the predicted economic and demographic effects. The model is calibrated to many sub-national areas for policy analysis and forecasting, and is available in single- and multi-area configurations. Each calibrated area (or region) has economic and demographic variables, as well as policy variables so that any policy that affects a local economy can be tested.
The REMI® model has been in use since 1980. A continuous research effort to refine, expand and improve the model has been underway since that time. The model and supporting research is documented in professional journals, including The American Economic Review, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Growth and Change, The Journal of Regional Science, and The International Regional Science Review.
The widespread use of the REMI methodology throughout the U.S. has led to extensive documentation of the value of using the REMI model in socioeconomic analysis. For example, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) commissioned a $200,000 study for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study (hereafter referred to as "the MIT study") evaluated the REMI methodology and the entire socioeconomic analysis system that SCAQMD uses to obtain the impacts of implementing air pollution controls on the Los Angeles Basin. The MIT study evaluated REMI and other socioeconomic analysis models for SCAQMD, and came to the following conclusions:
REMI has the following seven features often unavailable in many other microcomputer-based regional forecasting models:
- It is calibrated to local conditions using a relatively large amount of local data, which is likely to improve its performance, especially under conditions of structural economic change.
- It has an exceptionally strong theoretical foundation.
- It actually combines several different kinds of analytical tools (including economic-base, input-output, and econometric models), allowing it to take advantage of each specific method's strengths and compensate for its weaknesses.
- It allows users to manipulate an unusually large number of input variables and gives forecasts for an unusually large number of output variables.
- It allows the user to generate forecasts for any combination of future years, allowing the user special flexibility in analyzing the timing of economic impacts.
- It accounts for business cycles.
- It has been used by a large number of users under diverse conditions and has proven to perform acceptably.
Click here to explore some of the advantages of REMI over RIMS and I-O models. For REMI's approach to the development and implementation of the model, click here.