A Policy-Based Social Accounting Matrix for Price Controls, Quotas and Oil Depletion

Substantial improvements have been made in the design of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), as a macroeconomic data system, and this is one of the principal reasons for the increase in popularity of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling which has taken place over the past decade. Some experience in Tunisia will be drawn on here in order to show that the SAM is more than a mere statistical framework, and that when the time comes to build a CGE model, the design of the SAM and the construction of the CGE model are two closely interrelated activities.