The population module:
· represents 22 age-sex cohorts to age 100+
· calculates change in fertility and mortality rates in response to income, income distribution, and analysis multipliers
· computes average life expectancy at birth, literacy rate, and overall measures of human development (HDI) and physical quality of life
· represents migration and HIV/AIDS
· includes a newly developing submodel of formal education across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels
The economic module:
· represents the economy in six sectors: agriculture, materials, energy, industry, services, and ICT (other sectors could be configured, using raw data from the GTAP project)
· computes and uses input-output matrices that change dynamically with development level
· is a general equilibrium-seeking model that does not assume exact equilibrium will exist in any given year; rather it uses inventories as buffer stocks and to provide price signals so that the model chases equilibrium over time
· contains an endogenous production function that represents contributions to growth in multifactor productivity from R&D, education, worker health, economic policies (“freedom”), and energy prices (the “quality” of capital)
· uses a Linear Expenditure System to represent changing consumption patterns
· utilizes a "pooled" rather than the bilateral trade approach for international trade
· is being imbedded during 2002 in a social accounting matrix (SAM) envelope that will tie economic production and consumption to intra-actor financial flows
The agricultural module:
· represents production, consumption and trade of crops and meat; it also carries ocean fish catch and aquaculture in less detail
· maintains land use in crop, grazing, forest, urban, and "other" categories
· represents demand for food, for livestock feed, and for industrial use of agricultural products
· is a partial equilibrium model in which food stocks buffer imbalances between production and consumption and determine price changes
· overrides the agricultural sector in the economic module unless the user chooses otherwise
The energy module:
· portrays production of six energy types: oil, gas, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, and other renewable
· represents consumption and trade of energy in the aggregate
· represents known reserves and ultimate resources of the fossil fuels
· portrays changing capital costs of each energy type with technological change as well as with draw-downs of resources
· is a partial equilibrium model in which energy stocks buffer imbalances between production and consumption and determine price changes
· overrides the energy sector in the economic module unless the user chooses otherwise
The two socio-political sub-modules:
Within countries or geographic groupings
· represents fiscal policy through taxing and spending decisions
· shows six categories of government spending: military, health, education, R&D, foreign aid, and a residual category
· represents changes in social conditions of individuals (like fertility rates or literacy levels), attitudes of individuals (such as the level of materialism/postmaterialism of a society from the World Value Survey), and the social organization of people (such as the status of women)
· represents the evolution of democracy
· represents the prospects for state instability or failure
Between countries or groupings of countries
· traces changes in power balances across states and regions
· allows exploration of changes in the level of interstate threat
· represents possible action-reaction processes and arms races with associated potential for conflict among countries
The implicit environmental module:
· is distributed throughout the overall model
· allows tracking of remaining resources of fossil fuels, of the area of forested land, of water usage, and of atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions
The implicit technology module:
· is distributed throughout the overall model
· allows changes in assumptions about rates of technological advance in agriculture, energy, and the broader economy
· explicitly represents the extent of electronic networking of individuals in societies
· is tied to the governmental spending model with respect to R&D spending