Intermediate Dynamic Modeling II shows the development of a cohesive modeling project focused on the changing US demographics brought on by the aging baby boomer generation and the impacts on both the US Social Security system and on Medicare, through increasing costs in the US health care system.

Join Dr. Karim Chichakly as he guides you, step by step, through some of the key components in the process of effective model creation. During each 55-minute class, you'll learn the ins and outs of model creation as he shares his personal workflow and additional tips and tricks that he’s learned in more than 20 years of experience in the field.

Each class is followed with a question and answer session with Dr. Chichakly. Online access to these class recordings, sample models, handouts, and homework assignments are included to cement your learning.

Course Overview

Class 1: Framing the problem

The problem description is deceptively simple (aging baby boomers taxing social security’s resources) with little apparent feedback. This class will both introduce the problem and develop the spine of the model, the population aging chain, highlighting how much can be learned from this simple model.

Class 2: Expanding the Boundary

Tax revenue and social security spending are added to explore budget deficits over the next 40 years. To add the impact to Medicare, we start to build an independent health care model.

Class 3: Closing the loops

Many loops need to be closed in our health care model, for example, the role of technology on life span and the impact of new technologies on the retirement of existing technology. Afterwards, we will connect it to our demographics model, which will close the loops we identified last week.

Class 4: Policy Analysis

After sensitivity analysis of some key parameters, a number of policy interventions are suggested and tested, leading to expansion of the base model.