The US economy from 1992 to 1998: historical and decomposition simulations with the USAGE model

USAGE is a 500 industry dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the US economy being developed at Monash University in collaboration with the US International Trade Commission. In common with the MONASH model of Australia, USAGE is designed for four modes of analysis: Historical, where we estimate changes in technology and consumer preferences; Decomposition, where we explain periods of economic history in terms of driving factors such as changes in technology and consumer preferences; Forecast, where we derive basecase forecasts for industries, occupations and regions that are consistent with trends from historical simulations and with available expert opinions; and Policy, where we derive deviations from basecase forecast paths caused by assumed policies. This paper reports our first set of historical and decomposition results. The historical results quantify several aspects of technical change in US industries for the period 1992 to 1998 including: intermediate-input-saving technical change; primary-factor-saving technical change; labor-capital bias in technical change; and import-domestic bias in technical change. The historical results also quantify shifts in consumer preferences between commodities. The decomposition results are applied in illustrative analyses of growth in US international trade between 1992 and 1998 and of growth in the US steel industry for this period.