Regional economic modelling: evaluating existing methods and models for constructing an Irish prototype

This paper provides an overview of competing and supplementing methodologies for modelling the regional economic dynamics. The discussion provides a primer on how regional CGE, Econometric, Input-Output and SAM based models work towards capturing the region-specific, interregional and multiregional production, consumption and factor market patterns. An analysis of virtues and limitations of these alternate methodologies suggests that it may be the considerations such as the data collection/compilation, expected output, research objectives and costs involved that may determine the choice of modelling framework. Several existing regional models constructed for other countries and their characteristics are summarized along with the specific discussion on regional economic impact analysis in Ireland and how one could move towards constructing an Irish prototype