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Introduction to AMES

Welcome to AMES, the Adaptable Macroeconomic Extension for Sustainability analysis.

Accessing the code

AMES is open source and hosted on GitHub. If you wish to access the code, please visit the AMES GitHub repository.

AMES is a macroeconomic model designed to work with LEAP, the Low Emissions Analysis Platform. This documentation will explain how to build a AMES model and link the model to LEAP.

Learning about LEAP

To learn how to build LEAP models, the LEAP website has extensive documentation and other learning materials. A demonstration version of the software can be downloaded at no cost. Free or discounted licenses are available for students and for those in low-income and middle-income countries: see LEAP's licensing policy for more detail.

AMES is a demand-led growth model for an open, multi-sector economy. It takes a set of supply and use tables as an input. It is a flexible model that can be adapted to specific country circumstances.

The primary use for AMES is energy policy analysis. It is an economic extension to the LEAP energy policy analysis and climate change mitigation assessment tool. It can also be run independently and can be linked to other models. However, it is not intended for use as a stand-alone economic planning model. Specifically, it was developed with three purposes in mind:

  1. To provide economic drivers to LEAP that are grounded in the structure of the economy;
  2. To estimate the impact of different energy investment scenarios on output and employment outside the energy sector;
  3. To enable links with other models, particularly physical models of natural resource use.
The role of energy in the economy

AMES assumes that energy is a crucial input into the rest of the economy. Also, the energy sector is assumed to be an important source of demand for investment goods. However, to simplify model development and maintenance, AMES assumes that the energy transformation sector is not a major source of demand for goods and services supplied by the rest of the economy. AMES calculates a statistic that estimates the importance of the energy transformation sector: see Isolating the energy sector for more details.

In some countries, the energy extraction sector is important as a source of demand. In that case, LEAP can supply AMES with trends in primary production of resources such as coal, crude oil, and natural gas.