Hi all,
Its been a terribly long time since I was active on this site and I figured a nice little project might be a good way to try to get back into the swing of things over the holiday break. I feel as though the current method of determining economic statistics for nations is inadequate. I think between all the collective knowledge and dedication that folks on this site have displayed we could really add a new layer of depth to the game if we focused that energy in the right way.
The goal: To take the following data: Population, tax rate, land size, economic classification, civil rights classification, political freedoms classification, and extrapolate the following:
Aggregate Demand
Aggregate Supply
Real GDP
Potential GDP (and the ability to forecast future PGDP)
The components of GDP (C,I,G,X)
Inflation rates
Interest rates
Exchange rates
Labor Force
Unemployment
Productivity
Savings
Consumer Confidence
Stock Indexes
And last but not least: a general desire to use these dynamic statistics as elements in role play that will influence decision making. IE - what is our target inflation rate and will expanding our defense budget and running up a deficit be worth the increase in interest rates and a decline in areas such as investment?
The methodology:
Use real world economic data to create a model that will be half art and half science. It will incorporate hard data from the game as well as features that players incorporate to provide realistic estimates in the above areas and possibly others that will enhance role-play experiences.
(yeah, that was vague because I'm not 100% sure of the most efficient way of going about doing this yet. It will most likely involve a lot of scatter plots, regressions, and distributions)
In a perfect world:
Players will be able to simply plug in a few numbers and ratings and get initial statistics that will require updates every once in a while depending on how in depth players want their economies to be.
If anyone out there has an interest in this sort of thing I am certainly not opposed to have some help with this. Also if people could offer their opinions to let me know if they see any actual value in this project I would really appreciate the input