Running the Economy: A Review of the Internet-Based Fairmodel

Since February 1997, Fair's large macroeconometric multi-country model has been freely available through the internet. In this article both the history and the use of the Fairmodel are discussed. The Fairmodel enables students to work with real data and it makes economic theory come to life. A drawback is that getting started with the model can take up a great deal of time. A realistic example of working with the model is presented. The Fairmodel shows that the internet could drastically change the manner in which economics is taught.