Growth Lab Research Seminar: Advancing Urban Models for Impact

The Growth Lab's Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development.

Whether you are attending online or in-person, please register in advance. Room attendance is permitted for the Harvard community. The Zoom session is open to the public. 

Abstract: Cities are essential drivers of human progress, yet face uniquely complex challenges. Policy decisions spanning zoning, taxation, transportation, and education profoundly shape social and economic outcomes for billions. Yet each policy lever has ripple effects across other domains that should be accounted for in effective policy design. Moreover, the complexity of the desired analysis may create a gap with stakeholders who should align with and adopt policy implications. Building on research in system dynamics, urban economics, complexity science, and other modeling disciplines, as well as community engagement methods, this talk outlines a framework for model-assisted design and implementation of policies to help cities navigate toward their desired futures. Starting from the guiding principles of rigorous policy assessment, inclusivity, transparency, and scalable engagement, our framework offers a roadmap on two fronts. First, we outline architectural choices in modeling to rigorously account for interactions among households, businesses, buildings, transportation, education, and other infrastructure, which create significant ripple effects for any intervention. Second, we discuss community engagement methods that build trust, help discover win-win solutions, and enable implementation at scale. A deeper dive with the audience in the structures of the current model and development roadmap will be part of the seminar. We hope this framework is a stepping stone in engaging a new generation of model-based policy design initiatives with diverse urban communities. 

Speaker Bio: Hazhir Rahmandad is the Schussel Family Professor of Management and Professor of System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research applies simulation modeling and estimation to complex dynamic problems spanning strategy (e.g. how can we design strategies that align workers outcomes with those of the firms?), public health (e.g. was there a tradeoff between saving lives and livelihoods in response to COVID-19?), public policy (e.g. how do we assess the broad-boundary tradeoffs in urban policy design?), and system dynamics methodology.