Digital Transformation and Public Policies

3Access Policies to Digital Resources of Administration through the Lens of Microsimulation

To tell you the little story of why we got excited about microsimulation, it’s that Anthony Atkinson had a rather extraordinary experience: he was relatively close to the Labour Party […] At the time of the budget speech in the English Parliament, the Prime Minister makes his speech and indicates all the reforms that are going to take place. Atkinson had convinced Gordon Brown that it was possible to simulate the effects of his reforms almost simultaneously with the Prime Minister’s announcement […]. The Prime Minister made his speech that day. Gordon Brown asked for a half-hour recess, during which Atkinson did his calculations on his computer, which at the time was rudimentary, and he came out with the results and said, “This is what your reform is going to do, there are so many winners, so many losers, the winners are these people, the losers are those people.” The British Parliament was absolutely amazed that the opposition had been able to produce these results in such a short time. And it’s a bit on this that we launched the microsimulation project, because we thought we were going to convince journalists, parliamentarians to systematically use this product (Interview with François Bourguignon, July 2021).

This excerpt from an interview with one of the pioneers of microsimulation in France summarizes the challenge of disseminating this tool for designing and evaluating tax-benefit ...