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OUR MISSION

To provide a comprehensive, user friendly software package to analyze risk, manage data, and perform statistical analyses.

OUR HISTORY

Simetar©: Simulation & Econometrics to Analyze Risk is an Excel Add-In developed since 1997 at Texas A&M. University by James W. Richardson, Keith D. Schumann and Paul A. Feldman. The software was initially developed to provide simulation and graphical analysis tools for conducting risk analysis of policy changes on agribusinesses. As Simetar’s capabilities grew, it was used to teach graduate courses in simulation and risk analysis at Texas A&M.

Simetar© requires little additional memory and operates efficiently on most PCs running Excel 2000 or higher. Simetar© consists of both Menu Driven Functions and User Defined Functions that run in Excel. A common theme with Simetar©, is that all functions are dynamic; so if changes are made to the original data most all parameters, hypothesis tests, regression models, and risk ranking strategies are automatically updated. This feature of having Excel dynamically recalculate parameters offers significant efficiencies during the development, validation and verification steps for developing stochastic simulation models.

The more than 250 User Defined functions in Simetar© can be categorized into six groups: (1) random variables for simulation, (2) statistical analyses and tests, (3) graphical analyses, (4) ranking risky alternatives, (5) data manipulation and analysis, (6) econometric modeling, and (7) forecasting. Simetar© can be used to perform all of the steps for developing, simulating, and applying a stochastic model, namely: estimating parameters for random variables, simulating stochastic variables, testing the validity of the random variables, presenting the results graphically, and ranking risky alternatives.

Simetar© was designed to provide simulation modelers the risk analysis tools needed to build a comprehensive simulation model, simulate the model for multiple scenarios, validate the simulation results, rank risky scenarios, and display the results using graphical aids. The list of risk analysis tools included in Simetar© came from the more than 30 years of simulation experience Dr. Richardson has from conducting risk analyses of policy changes. Additional capabilities have been added to Simetar© over the past three years after using it to teach simulation workshops both domestically and abroad. During the past year, significant improvements and additions have been made to the multiple regression tools, statistical validation tests, graphical capabilities, and random number generation routines.

Simetar© has been used to teach nine graduate classes at Texas A&M since 2000. More than 250 students put Simetar© to the test, providing feedback that improved the design and flexibility. Additional beta users over the past four years are leading economists at policy centers and applied economics departments across the U.S. and Europe. The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute uses Simetar© for their econometrics estimation as well as simulation and graphical display of results. Simetar© has been used for teaching risk analysis at UNV-Reno, OSU, Purdue, and KSU.

OUR TEAM

	Dr. James W. Richardson Is a Regents Professor, TAES Faculty Fellow, and Co-Director of the Agricultural & Food Policy Center in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. He teaches two graduate courses in simulation, forecasting and risk analysis for decision making. http://www.afpc.tamu.edu/courses/ His research experience has been in the area of risk analysis applied to policy analysis for more than 30 years. He has written more than 90 journal articles and 300 research reports and professional papers. He is most noted for his work in multivariate non-normal distribution simulation, both intra and inter-temporal, and for ranking risky scenarios. Link to vita.
	Dr. Keith D. Schumann Is an economist at Welch Consulting. He received a BS degree in Agribusiness, MS degree in Agricultural Economics, and Ph.D. in Statistics at Texas A&M University. His research has led to the development of stochastic efficiency with respect to a function (SERF) the newest technique for ranking risky alternatives based on utility. Link to SERF article. He has been responsible for programming the majority of the code in Simetar©. Link to vita.
	Mr. Paul A. Feldman Is a Research Associate in the Agricultural & Food Policy Center in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. He received BS and MS degrees in Agricultural Economics at A&M and is presently an MS student in the Department of Statistics at A&M. His research has focused on parameter estimation techniques, random number generators, and the validation of statistical tests and methods in Simetar©. Link to vita.