This has been another successful year for the Policy Simulation Library, whose great community of contributors continue to make innovative advances in open source policy analysis, and for the PSL Foundation, which supports the Library and its community. We are so thankful for all those who have made financial or technical contributions to the PSL this year! In this blog post, I want to take this time at the end of the year to reflect on a few of the highlights from 2022.
PolicyEngine, a PSL Foundation fiscally-sponsored project, launched PolicyEngine US in April and has since seen many use cases of the model (check out the PolicyEngine year-in-review here). PolicyEngine had begun by leveraging the OpenFisca platform, but has transitioned to their own-maintained PolicyEngine Core. PolicyEngine Core and their related projects (such as PolicyEngine US and PolicyEngine UK) already meet all the criteria set forth by the Policy Simulation Library. Keep an eye out for lots more excellent tax and benefit policy analysis tools from PolicyEngine in 2023 and beyond!
PSL Foundation has partnered with QuantEcon, acting as a fiscal sponsor for their projects that provide training and training materials for economic modeling and econometrics using open source tools. QuantEcon ran a massive open online class in India that had more than 1000 registrants in summer of 2022. They also ran an online course for over 100 students from universities in Africa in 2022. Further, with the funding received through their partnership with PSL Foundation, QuantEcon will continue these efforts in 2023 with a planned, in-person course in India.
PSL hosted its first in-person workshop in March. The workshop focused on open source tools for tax policy analysis including Tax-Calculator, Cost-of-Capital-Calculator, OG-USA, and PolicyEngine US. The PSL event was, appropriately enough, hosted at the MLK Memorial Library in DC. We filled the space with 30 attendees from think tanks, consultancies, and government agencies. The workshop was a great success and we look forward to hosting more in-person workshops in the future.
PSL’s bi-weekly Demo Day series continued throughout 2022, with 13 Demo Days this year. In these, we saw a wide array of presenters from institutions such as the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, PolicyEngine, Tax Foundation, National Center for Children in Poverty, IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Channels, the University of South Carolina, the Center for Growth and Opportunity, and the American Enterprise Institute. You can go back and rewatch any of these presentations on YouTube.
It’s been a fantastic year and we expect even more from the community and PSL Foundation in 2023. PSL community members continue to interact several times each week on our public calls. Check out the events page and join us in the New Year!
From all of us at the PSL, best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!
Resources:
- PSL Foundation
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- PSL on Open Collective
- PSL Shop for PSL branded merchandise