The causal structure of economic models

Large quantitative models of the economy are increasingly being used to prepare short-term and long-term projections. In most cases inspection of each single equation is not sufficient to understand the functioning of a complete model, a situation which sometimes leads to so-called “counter-intuitive” results of model simulations. The authors briefly describe a method for the analysis of the causal structure of large models and apply this method to an analysis of the United Nations model of the future of the world economy directed by W. Leontief.