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

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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 advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

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 grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...

, the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change,

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development The United Nations Conference on 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 ...

, and the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries ...

. There are currently three "Consortium Members At Large" – Joseph Francois, Mark Horridge, and Brian O'Neill, who represent the broader scientific community. The primary database is essentially a multi-year form of a multi-region input output (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 (appl ...

(CGE) research community, in recent years the database has also been at the center of

greenhouse gas emissions accounting Greenhouse gas inventories are emission inventories of greenhouse gas emissions that are developed for a variety of reasons. Scientists use inventories of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions as tools when developing atmospheric m ...

exercises, and related assessments of resource use.

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 process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be deter ...

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 GEMPACK (General Equilibrium Modelling PACKage) is a modeling system for CGE economic models, used at the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) in Melbourne, Australia, and sold to other CGE modellers. Some of the more well-known CGE models solved using ...

suite of software but is also implemented using the GAMS suite of software. The Center also organizes a large-scale annual conference on global economic policy modelling. The Center also provides awards and recognition to members of the research community, including the Alan A. Powell Award and the GTAP Research Fellow awards.

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. *Hertel, Thomas, Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and Applications (Modelling and Applications), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999, . *Lanz, Bruno and Ruterford, Thomsa (2016) "GTAPinGAMS: Multiregional and Small Open Economy Models." ''Journal of Global Economic Analysis,'' Vol 1 (2): 1–77.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Economics societies Research institutes established in 1992 Economic research institutes Purdue University