Updating USAGE: Baseline and Illustrative Application

USAGE is a dynamic, CGE model of the U.S. economy created at CoPS in collaboration with the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). The model has been used by and on behalf of: the USITC; the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation and Homeland Security; private sector organizations such as the Cato Institute and the Mitre Corporation; and the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC. To keep the model relevant for policy analysis, it must be updated periodically. This paper describes a major update of USAGE undertaken for the USITC. In accordance with the CoPS contract with the USITC, the update task was to: 1. build a NAICS-based database at the 400-industry level for USAGE using the 2007 BEA benchmark input-output tables; 2. update this database to 2014; 3. create a baseline projection starting from the base year of 2014 and proceeding at 5 year intervals to 2024; and 4. conduct an illustrative USAGE policy simulation around the baseline. At the completion of this work in August 2016, the ITC requested a fifth task: 5. update from 2007 to 2015 rather than 2014 and create a baseline from 2015 to 2020. This paper describes how we undertook the five tasks.