Basic Gams and Agricultural Modeling

A workshop designed for those interested in applying GAMS modeling to study management decisions in the business and policy arenas examining the impact of changing prices, risk conditions and investment opportunities with emphasis on agricultural modeling of firms, the environment and the sector. Students are not expected to know GAMS ahead of time The whole class will deal with the topics of how to formulate , t from GAMS based models starting from no assumed knowledge but working up through advanced formulation (dealing with aggregation, price responsive demand, and risk as well as GAMS model debugging and improved output presentation topics.

Next courses: May 12-14, 2004, Braunschweig, Germany

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Course Timing and Fees
Instructor
What Will You Learn By Taking the Course?

Brief Course Description

Assumed Background and Motivation of Participants
Class Objectives
Detailed Course Outline
Course Presentation Method
Materials and Experiences You Will Get by Attending the Workshop

Things to Do Before the Class
Course History and past Participants
Fees and Registration Information
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Instructor Background

Bruce A. McCarl is a Regents Professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas specializing in Mathematical Programming applications in Agricultural Economics. He has wide teaching, research, consulting and applied analysis experience in the application of mathematical programming to industry, and government.( Read about some projects he has done ). He has been on the Texas A&M faculty since 1985 and previously taught at Oregon State University, Purdue University and Pennsylvania State University. Dr. McCarl is a winner of awards from USDA, and USEPA for his optimization applications. He was Associate Editor of Water Resources Research and the Associate Editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Dr. McCarl earned a B.A. in Business Statistics from the University of Colorado and a Ph.D. in Management Science from the Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. McCarl taught his first GAMS short course in 1986 and has been a GAMS user since 1985. He has written the GAMSCHK / GAMSBAS /GAMSMAP modeling assistance products which are being freely distributed with releases of GAMS. He has consulted on optimization and GAMS use with employees of First National Bank of Maryland, Tasmanian Hydropower, Neodyme, USCOE, American Express, USAID, Government of Egypt, International Harvester, World Bank, Department of Energy, Bonneville Power, Electric Power Research Institute, USDA, and USEPA among others.

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What will the course help you learn?

You will learn techniques for doing firm impact modeling analysis including treatment of risk and investment modeling using the professional's choice in modeling software -- GAMS. The 4-day course will provide you with learning experiences regarding questions such as:

Do you find it desirable to do a model on how the firm might act given changes in prices, programs, policies, regulations or environmental forces? Learn how to model business and agricultural entities and reflect the influence of such forces on production processes and markets.
Do you find yourself needing to model reaction to risk and wish to incorporate risk aversion? Learn techniques for modeling risk avoiding behavior in situations where decision makers can or cannot exercise recourse in adjusting their decisions
Do you find yourself working on regional agricultural models ? Learn aggregation techniques.
Do you want to formulate a sector model> See how.
When modeling does it take you a long time to construct , verify , use the model for comparative studies and convert output into meaningful reports? Learn techniques which increase the efficiency with which you use GAMS.
Do you find yourself curious about how others model large problems? See the way a several complete modeling systems are implemented and receive a copy for your later examination

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Brief Course Description

Topics covered

Basic GAMS modeling and use of the IDE
Building firm models with GAMS
Small to large Modeling strategies
Adding risk considerations to the firm model with and without recourse
Modeling regional models with multiple firms and aggregate representations
Modeling transportation of goods and adding price responsive considerations to the model to examine pricing or sectoral policy
Implementing an impact analysis system
Intermixed treatment on GAMS usage including

Improving output
Using the $ conditional
Linking to spreadsheets
How to do efficiently verify model structure and debug flaws
The latest features in new GAMS releases

See a more detailed outline

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Assumed Background and Motivation of Participants

The course will be instructed assuming those present wish to do impact analyses using GAMS but are not very familiar with the GAMS language. Participants should wish to receive practical instruction on topics that will enable them to easily do impact analyses and increase the efficiency and accuracy with which they use GAMS in modeling settings.

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Course Objectives

To teach workshop participants techniques allowing them to

Learn to use GAMS
Conduct impact analyses
Incorporate risk into models
Handle regional and sectoral analysis
Use GAMS efficiently.
Use GAMSCHK

To carry out this instruction in an applied environment exposing students to a variety of modeling issues and techniques

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Course Presentation Method

The class will mix hands on computing sessions with computer based lectures. The hands on sessions will involve participants working in groups of 2-3 throughout the workshop. The groups will be provided with PCs loaded with the latest available GAMS versions and all class examples. There will be no fewer than one PC available per three students. (Participants may bring their own laptops capable of having 20 or so megabytes of software loaded on them from a CD-ROM). Access to a floppy drive or cwability to get files through a USB 2.0 removable pen drive is desirable. During the hands on sessions the instructor will interact with the groups on class topics, questions and general GAMS usage.

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By taking this course you will

Receive advanced training on the topics above
Be exposed to others attending the class learning about their impact analysis usage
Interact with the instructor who is a very experienced impact analysis modeler
Be trained in the use of software and receive copies for your use of

GAMSCHK	analyzes GAMS models and assists in their use
GAMSBAS	saves a basis
GAMS-IDE	PC editing, execution and debugging environment
GAMS 2.50	The biggest change in years
The 10 region ASM Sector Model