Activities for 2016

Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers will continue to expand existing research. New exploratory studies within the IIASA cross-cutting and Systems Analysis Forum projects are expected to deliver their first results in 2016.

Adapted from: © Miroslava Hlavačová | Dreamstime

Adapted from: © Miroslava Hlavačová | Dreamstime

ASA researchers will continue to drive methodological advances in the theory of optimal control for problems on the infinite time horizon. This will provide a powerful tool for macroeconomists to analyze more sophisticated economic growth models at the appropriate level of mathematical rigor. ASA researchers will continue to analyze models of economic growth including new drivers and impacts, with a focus on models incorporating random shocks and heterogeneous agents (in collaboration with the World Population Program). This research will yield new insights for sustainable economic growth policies.

ASA will continue its collaboration with the Ecosystems Services and Management Program to include risk aversion options in the Global Biosphere Management Model, as well as to develop national and regional case studies (Ukraine and China, for instance). The program will also further develop its work with models of heterogeneous populations, with a particular focus on quantifying trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives in management.

An important challenge, which ASA intends to tackle in the next research phase, is to establish empirical evidence linking both network-analysis indicators and historical resilience of corresponding systems, and network-analysis indicators and policy implications. To do so, several case studies based on real historical data will be carried out.

Ecological networks and economic-financial networks will be the focus of ASA research on systemic risk in the cross-cutting project, Systemic Risk and Network Dynamics, carried out in collaboration with the Evolution and Ecology and Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Programs. The structural features of these systems that promote resilience to external shocks will be a key focus, as well as identification of measures or policies that can help reduce systemic risk.

As part of the ClimTrans2050 project, funded by the Austrian Climate Research Programme, ASA researchers and partners will design a research plan for creating an open source model that will identify emissions reductions paths and costs for Austria to achieve an 80-95% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Under the PHC project, funded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the issue of “predictability” of emissions will be analyzed from a theoretical perspective. A novel method for building projections based on coarse-graining data will be developed for the project, and a metric for evaluating the reliability of projections based on historical trends will be identified. Other projects that ASA will be involved in over the coming year include the EU-funded COMPLEX project (under which ASA will develop integration methods for alternative economy-climate models) and the Platform Value Now project, funded by the Finnish Strategic Research Council (under which ASA is planning to enhance qualitative and quantitative foresight methods, and apply these to analyzing the futures of platform economies).


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Last edited: 15 March 2016

CONTACT DETAILS

Elena Rovenskaya

Program Director and Principal Research Scholar Advancing Systems Analysis Program

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International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313