Applied General Equilibrium: An Introduction: Review of book by Manuel Alejandro Cardente, Ana-Isabel Guerra and Ferran Sancho

Multi-sectoral applied or computable general equilibrium (AGE or CGE) models are increasingly recognised as an important tool to provide insight on a wide variety of economics-based problems and to inform a variety of policy issues. However. two basic problems are encountered in bringing new analysis to the field. First, particularly given the availability of 'off-the-shelf' software packages, there is a worrying tendency (and temptation) to us CGE modes in a 'black box' fashion, without understanding the underlying economic interactions driving results. Second, the existing general equilibrium modelling literature largely consists of very advance and/or specialised research papers that are not easily accessible to non-experts.