The Heimdal model

The Heimdal model is made by the Economic Council of the Labour Movement (AE), the protagonist is Lars Andersen, Director of AE. This was unfunded work and it was therefore put on hold approx. 2016, and approx. abandoned 2018.

My master's thesis from 2009 was about a model that was open source, worldwide, and considerations about this. It only dealt with a few variables. I was therefore looking for something bigger, and also collaborators. I got hold of the professors, now both emeritus Jesper Jespersen, RUC and Christen Sørensen from SDU, both of whom I knew from my previous work at U. CPH, where I helped them with calculations and runs in connection with their runs around their modelling work.

I managed to persuade Lars Andersen to release the model as open source, i.e. the equation systems.

Heimdal's Gekko equation system

There are 3 components in a model: the equation systems, the programme to run the model, and the data.

Given that Heimdal is a large model covering about 20 countries in the OECD, it is important that country data is consistent between countries, and also in the long run. This is the case with IMF data, perhaps others as well.

The programme could be gekko, which ADAM from Statics Denmark also uses and is open source, or the statistical package R, which I used in the thesis and which is approximately the standard language in statistics. gekko is used in Heimdal. My plan is therefore to eventually convert Heimdal to run with IMF data or perhaps OECD, but the IMF as a UN organisation covers more countries.

I am thinking of organising the work as an open source project. Other countries than DK I have tried to organise via European Left, a party in the European Parliament, to begin with. It should probably be an open organisation where everyone can join.

I have some machine power at DTU, it may take some time in the beginning. Heimdal was incorporated into high school education, it could be built on when the force is there. One problem is that I have become disabled after a blood clot in the brain, but let's see where it leads. Cognitively I function reasonably well.

keld