SOUTHMOD – simulating tax and benefit policies for development

In collaboration with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the EUROMOD team* at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex (in Phase 1, 2014-19), and the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (in Phase 2, 2020 to date), SASPRI has been engaged in a programme of work to develop tax-benefit microsimulation models for a number of countries in the global South. These models, collectively referred to as SOUTHMOD, have been constructed using the EUROMOD platform developed by ISER and the work is being undertaken jointly with local partners in the countries concerned. SASPRI’s contribution to the work programme builds on previous work using the EUROMOD platform to develop similar models for South Africa (SAMOD) and Namibia (NAMOD). 

Under the SOUTHMOD programme, SASPRI has worked with country teams in Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Viet Nam, Zambia and Zanzibar.

The latest versions of the models and accompanying documentation are available from the country pages on the UNU-WIDER website. Publications jointly authored by members of SASPRI are available here.

*Since 2021, EUROMOD has been maintained, developed and managed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.

The following mini-documentary produced by UNU-WIDER demonstrates the value of microsimulation in developing countries and features members of SASPRI: