March 2021 Newsletter

This is a monthly newsletter of PSL model releases, events, and updates.
Subscribe at https://www.pslmodels.org and follow us on Twitter @PSLModels.

Demo Days

Recent presentations

• Hank Doupe demonstrated how how to use Compute Studio’s API to pass reforms to multiple PSL models hosted on its platform.
• Max Ghenis showed how Python developers can use the black code formatter to keep their code clean during development.

Cost-of-Capital-Calculator

A model that evaluates the effect of US federal taxes on businesses' investment incentives

Releases and new features

• Release 1.2.6  —  Brought the package up to speed with Tax-Calculator 3.1.0.

PCI-China

A machine learning algorithm that predicts China's policy changes by mining its state-controlled media

General updates

• Weifeng Zhong discussed the PCI projects and the latest developments in U.S.-China relations on C-SPAN's Washington Journal.

TaxData

A library that prepares microdata files to be used by Tax-Calculator

General updates

• This is a library developed by Anderson Frailey (University of Virginia) and newly included in the PSL catalog!
• The library prepares microdata files to be used by Tax-Calculator. It provides two different sets of data files: one based on a recent IRS-SOI Public Use File (PUF) and the other based on recent Census Current Population Survey (CPS) data.

Tax-Calculator

A USA federal individual income and payroll tax microsimulation model

Releases and new features

• Release 3.1.0  —  provided support for Python 3.9, added functionality for using Qualified Business Income deductions for analysis, and fixed various bugs (#2566).
• Added support for analyzing the American Rescue Plan (#2573).

General updates

• Used in an OpenRG research note that analyzes the distributional impacts of the American Rescue Plan.
• Used in an American Enterprise Institute study that analyzes the effective cost of child-related tax provisions from the American Rescue Plan.
• Used in an American Enterprise Institute study that analyzes the budgetary, distributional, and incentive effects of tax benefits for parents under current law and recent proposals to expand those benefits.

Tax-Cruncher

A model that calculates federal tax liabilities from individual data under a range of policy scenarios

General updates

• Used in an American Enterprise Institute study that analyzes the effects of the American Rescue Plan on hypothetical households.

PCI-Crackdown ^*

A machine learning algorithm that predicts crackdowns on protests by the Chinese military

General updates

• Will be presented at the International Studies Association's annual convention on April 6.

PCI-Outbreak ^*

A machine learning algorithm that estimates the true scale of epidemic outbreaks in China

General updates

• Will be presented at the Western Political Science Association's annual conference on April 2.

• Behavioral-Responses is a partial-equilibrium behavioral module that works with Tax-Calculator.
• Cost-of-Capital-Calculator evaluates the effect of US federal taxes on businesses' investment incentives.
• microdf is a package for analyzing economic microdata as pandas DataFrames.
• OG-USA is an overlapping-generations model for evaluating fiscal policy in the United States.
• OpenFisca-UK is a model of the United Kingdom's tax system based on the OpenFisca platform.
• ParamTools is a library for parameter processing and validation with a focus on computational modeling projects.
• PCI-China is a machine learning algorithm that predicts China's policy changes by mining its state-controlled media.
• TaxData is a library that prepares microdata files to be used by Tax-Calculator.
• Tax-Brain is an integrator package for multiple open source tax models.
• Tax-Calculator is a USA federal individual income and payroll tax microsimulation model.
• Tax-Cruncher calculates federal tax liabilities from individual data under a range of policy scenarios.