QUERY SD model of the US Economy (SD6912)

[SDMAIL Carl Betterton]

Posted by  Carl Betterton <Carl.Betterton at citadel.edu>

Hi everyone,

Here in the US we are experiencing a financial situation that is less 
than happy right now. It seemed to begin, at least in the public mind 
and media coverage, with the housing "melt down" or contraction of the 
housing "bubble" and related rapid decline in mortgage industry assets. 
It is more complicated than that; as a small example some have said it 
was the easy high-leverage credit policies that was an underlying cause.

What I am wondering is this - does anyone knows of a SD model of the US 
economy that would have or could have demonstrated to policy makers and 
the general public, in advance, the potential outcome to the economy? If 
so, was it used and advertised to people? I for one did not see it. This 
might have qualified as one of Kim Warren's indicators of SD success. 
Such a model would almost certainly contain some of the "soft" variables 
about which Alan McLucas recently started an interesting thread. And the 
recent thread on root cause analysis is also highly relevant.

Perhaps you will point out many SD models, but if no SD model exists, I 
suggest we begin to build such a model. Recent discussions of 
collaborative model building make me think members of this list could 
start such a model and at the same time explore the issues of 
collaborative building of a publicly accessible model. I am assuming 
that government policy makers and some academics (perhaps in economics) 
have built and maintain econometric models. Not quite the same as SD 
models, but could be a starting point. This could be a gradual, 
long-term project (years) to raise public awareness of SD, learn and 
demonstrate collaborative model building, and perform a beneficial 
public service. If we can give the project legs, we might even garner 
funding downstream to keep it going. There could be counterpart models 
for other nations, with linkages. There are so many possibilities it is 
hard to believe this has not been done already.

What do you think?

Kind regards,

Carl

Carl E. Betterton, P. E., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Business
The Citadel
Posted by  Carl Betterton <Carl.Betterton at citadel.edu>
posting date  Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:47:13 -0400