docs.healthdata.beEUROMOD is a statistical micro-simulation meta-model to describe models of tax policies and tax benefits based on household income in European countries. This meta-model makes it possible to simulate, evaluate and compare the various policies adopted and to give an estimate of the impact of work incentives on the population of each country as well as at the level of the EU zone as a whole. It is used both to calculate the effects of existing policies and to assess the impact of tax advantage policy reforms on poverty, inequality and national budgets.
The model is used as an instrument to conduct scenario analyses based on simulations using client statistical software, called EUROMOD, thus facilitating the work of researchers and decision-makers in order to assess the various political hypotheses. EUROMOD is a universal tool standardized for the EU: it is designed to produce models and results relevant for all European countries.
EUROMOD is an open access tool. It consists of 3 elements:
- the software application
- built-in policy rules that are updated via software to reflect existing policies as of the 30th of June each year. They enrich all the standard EUROMOD protocols
- input micro-data which are processed by the software
It was developed by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. Since 1st January 2021, the management has been taken over by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. (https://euromodweb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ ).
At the Belgian level, the Federal Public Service - Social Security (FOD-SZ) wants to be able, with the help of partners, to use this model to go further and work on more precise administrative data from several data sources to be able to estimate in advance a number of effects of policy reforms in the field of social protection. This concerns both the budgetary impact and an estimate of which persons and families will mainly see their income change.
This part is called BELMOD: Tax-benefit micro simulation model for Belgium .
The BELMOD model was developed as the modernisation of MIMOSIS. This project has ended as of August/September 2022. The exploitation and further updating of BELMOD (the model, not the project) is now an operational objective of the FPS Social Security.
Its purpose was twofold:
- at the technical level, the project aims to modernise the current microsimulation model of the FPS Social Security (MIMOSIS) and
- in terms of content, an inventory of policy measures to reduce the non-take-up (NTU) of social rights in Belgium will be drawn up
The additional data sources currently are:
- administrative data from both the Labor Market & Social Protection data warehouse
- data from the Federal Public Service - Finances: STIPAD/CADNET heritage cadaster and data from IPCAL tax returns (citizens' tax calculation sheets)
- STATBEL data
The BELMOD model is managed by the FOD-SZ and was developed in collaboration with the Federal Planning Bureau, the KU Leuven and the University of Antwerp.