About

 

This site provides links to R-state code for available Dynamic Component Models of the World-System.

Boiler Plate

Notes

The first six indicators in standard scores are taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI). KOF = KOF Index of Globalization, EF = Ecological Footprint, HDI = Human Development Index. 

State Space Model Estimation

The Measurement Matrix for the state space models was constructed using Principal Components Analysis with standardized data from the World Development Indicators. The statistical analysis was conducted in an extension of the dse package. The package is currently supported by an online portal (here) and can be downloaded, with the R-programming language, for any personal computer here. Code for the state space Dynamic Component models (DCMs) is available on my Google drive (here) and referenced in each post.

Atlanta Fed Economy Now

My approach to forecasting is similar to the EconomyNow model used by the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Since the new Republican Administration is signaling that they would like to eliminate the Federal Reserve, the app might well not be available in the future.

While the app is still available, there have been some interesting developments. In earlier forecasts, the Atlanta Fed was showing GDP growth predictions outside the Blue Chip Consensus. Right now, after unorthodox economic policies from the Trump II Administration, the EconomyNow model is predicting a drastic drop in GDP (the Financial Forecast Center is only predicting a slight drop here).

Another comparison for what I have presented above are the IPCC Emission Scenarios. These scenarios are for the World System. Needless to say, (1) the new Right-Wing Republican administration plans on withdrawing the US from all attempts to study or ameliorate Climate Change and (2) the IPCC does not produce any RW modes for the World System (but seem my forecasts here).

Climate Change

Another comparison for what I have presented above are the IPCC Emission Scenarios. These scenarios are for the World System. Needless to say, (1) the new Right-Wing Republican administration plans on withdrawing the US from all attempts to study or ameliorate Climate Change and (2) the IPCC does not produce any RW modes for the World System (but seem my forecasts here).

World System

The longest running set of data we have for the World-System is the Maddison Project based on the work of Angus Maddison (more information is available here). Data on production (Q) and population (N) for most countries and regions runs from years 0-2000. More data becomes available as we near the year 2000. 

Available data were entered in a spreadsheet (see Population above, double click to enlarge). Missing data were interpolated with nonlinear spline smoothing using the R programming Language.

In cases where initial values were not available (see GDP above), the E-M Algorithm was used to estimate initial conditions.

From the graph of GDP above (W_Q) for the World System, it can be seen that economic growth from the year 0-1500 was basically flat. The period of British Capitalism (after 1500) had a small plateau of growth. Takeoff does not happen until the Nineteenth Century.

From a system's perspective, the only model that can be tested for the entire period is Kenneth Boulding's Malthusian Systems Model [Q,N] = f[Q,N].

When developed as a State Space model (measurement matrix above) there are two components: W1=Growth and W2=(Q-N), the Malthusian Controller. When more data is available, the Malthusian Controller can be generalized to other SocioEconomic theories.

What the Malthusian Controller shows (plotted as Q-N above) is that a long-developing Malthusian Crisis (Q<N) started in the Late Middle Ages and accelerated through the period of British Capitalism (Dark Satanic Mills) and was reversed spectacularly during the Nineteenth Century.  Takeoff in response to a deepening Malthusian Crisis would not be an unreasonable way to view Modern Economic Growth.

Hurricane Forecasting

My vision for SocioEconomic system forecasting is to follow the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) approach to hurricane (Economic Crisis?) forecasting using Spaghetti Models (see below).

Currently, Economic forecasting does not use Multimodel Inference but it is getting there! The best state space model for the US SocioEconomic System in the graphic at the beginning of this post is the World System (W) model based on the AIC Criterion.

Climate Change

Another comparison for what I have presented above are the IPCC Emission Scenarios. These scenarios are for the World System. Needless to say, the new Right-Wing Republican administration plans on withdrawing the US from all attempts to study or ameliorate Climate Change.

Error Correcting Controllers (ECC)

In another post (here), I presented Leibenstein's Malthusian Error Correcting Controller (ECC). It can be generalized to the dominant ECCs in most theoretical economic models (above). These controllers can be further generalized. For example, (X-U) and (L-U) can be generalized to (N-U), a more general Urbanization Controller which describes market expansion for economic growth. In countries and periods with limited data, (N-U) might subsume all these processes. ECCs describe important feedback processes in SocioTechnical System that are typically not recognized as such in academic literature.

Kaya Identity

The basic theoretical model underlying all the World-System models I crate is the Kaya Identity. There are a number of advantages to starting theoretical development with the Kaya Identity: (1) An "identity" is true by definition Adding other variables to the model ensure that theory construction is on a solid footing. (2) The Kaya Identity is also used as the foundation for the IPCC Emissions Scenarios allowing a linkage between World-Systems Theory and the work of the IPCC.

World Development Indicators (WDI)

After WWII, extensive data sets on all countries in the World-System became available from the World Bank (here). The indicators above where chose to construct the state space for each WDI-based model. Addition indicators can be added for specific forecasts and analyses.

 

Blog Roll: Dynamic Component Models

This site provides a blog roll of existing Dynamic Component Models for the World-System. The models are all written in the R-statistical language and can be run from the linked Google Sites. For explanations about the periods chosen and the data sets used, see the Boiler Plate.

• World System Forecasts  Uses various World-System models to forecast specific indicators and indexes.
• Latin America R-stat code for various countries in the Latin American Region after 1950.
• European Union R-stat code for various countries in the European Union after 1950.
• United States R-stat code for the US after 1950.
• World-System Policy Models R-stat code for World-System Policy Models.
• World-System (1950-2000+) R-stat code for World-System Models for the Late Modern Period.
• World-System (1900-2000+) R-stat code for World-System Models for the Long Twentieth Century.
• World-System Models R-stat code for World-System Models for Theoretical World-System Models.
• Policy Models focusing on Macro Markets R-stat code for AS-AD Macro Policy Models.
• Code for estimating DCM Models R-stat code for estimating DCM models**.
• World-System DCM Models for the Long 16th Century (1450-1640) R-code for models testing assertions in The Modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century.
• Models for the Middle East and Africa Region (MEA)
• Models for the World-System in Depression (1900-1950)
• Models for the World-System during the Roman Empire (0-500)
• Theoretical Models from the Classical Economists DCM models developed from the work of the Classical Economists.
• Models for the MiddleAges (500-1500) 
• Models for the World-System from (0-2000) The longest-term models available.
• Models for the World-System in the Late Middle Ages (1300-1450)
• Models for the Long Nineteenth Century (1789-1914)
• Models for the Long Seventeenth Century (1640-1815)
• Models for the East Asia Pacific Region (1960-2000) 
• Models for Asia (minus Japan) (1960-2000)
• Models for the High Middle Ages (1150-1300)
• Models for North America (1960-2000)
• Models for the World in Depression (1900-1950)
• Models for SubSaharan Africa (1960-2000)
• Models for Africa (1960-2000)
• Theoretical Models for Causal MacroSystems

Notes

** DCM models are estimated using the dse Package in R. If the dse Package becomes unavailable (it has currently been removed from the CRAN Archive), I will make dse-lite R-code available for estimating DCM models (the dse package is to large and contains too much extraneous code to be maintained by anyone other than the originator). Documentation for the dse package is available at R-Forge (here).