New simulation game allows you to play at being chancellor
If you've ever wanted play God and toy with the British economy so it obeys your every whim without paying for the consequences, then the opportunity may be at hand.
Highly sophitisticated simulation software, once only available to the elite in Whitehall and university research, has now been made available to the public.
Virtual Economy II simulates the effect of changes to taxes and benefits on British households and was used to produce the recent Institute for Fiscal Studies Green Budget 2000.
The software also includes a version of the Treasury’s macroeconomic forecasting model, which predicts the effects of tax and interest rate changes on inflation, growth and unemployment using the Treasury’s own assumptions.
A revitalised version of the original Virtual Economy I the latest additions posess user-interface technology which allows the same interaction that computer game players of Sim City or Civilisation are used to.
Whether you are Gordon Brown, Norman Lamont or Nigel Lawson VE II can show you where your policies will end up. Pity it doesn’t say what the voters’ reaction will be.
Information is available at www.bized.ac.uk/virtual/economy