Introduction and overview

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to the publicly available software accompanying this book, and to tell you how you can use this software to carry out, on a PC, the applications presented in Part III (Chapters 7–13) of this book. These programs are based on the GEMPACK suite of software (Harrison and Pearson 1994), which is designed specifically for the nonlinear solution of partial and general equilibrium models. The files with which you will work have been specially tailored to the needs of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), and they offer users a great deal of flexibility, within this standard framework. The software accompanying this book is referred to as the GTAP Book Version of GEMPACK.

GEMPACK separates the theory of GTAP (Chapter 2) from the basic data base (Chapter 3) and the behavioral parameters (Chapter 4). All the applications in Part III draw on the same theoretical structure, which we refer to as the “standard GTAP model.” Indeed, the software accompanying this book does not permit the user to modify the basic theory. Within this broad structure, however, there is ample flexibility for addressing a wide variety of issues, including: the impact of economic growth on trade and factor markets, regional integration, multilateral trade policy reform, distributional consequences of technological change, implications of environmental policies, and more.