Abstract for: Why and How Small System Dynamics Models Can Help Policymakers: A Review of Two Public Policy Models

Public policies often fail to achieve their intended result due to the complexity of both the environment and the policy making process. In this article, we review the benefits of using small system dynamics models to address public policy questions. First we discuss the main difficulties inherent in the public policymaking process. Then, we discuss how small system dynamics models can address policymaking difficulties by examining two promising examples: the first in the domain of urban planning and the second in the domain of social welfare. These examples show how we can get insightful and important lessons for policy making that are exclusive to the endogenous and aggregate perspective in modeling and simulation.