PolicyEngine / PolicyEngine/microcosm

populace-nz: add NZ wealth margins so encoded asset tests become operative (AS/TAS)

Open
#592 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
0
Forks
4
Avg merge
1d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
94

Description

The rules side is already done: rulespec-nz's Accommodation Supplement module encodes the cash-asset limits (Social Security Regulations 2018 regs 15–19) and gates eligibility on accommodation_supplement_cash_assets_within_limit. What makes that gate operative in a take-up estimate is the population side: donor microdata carries wealth variables, but docs/nz-calibration-targets.md currently has no wealth rows, so cash assets would pass through donor-shaped rather than NZ-shaped.

Add NZ net-worth margins to the target inventory and calibration:

  • Stats NZ household net worth statistics (HES net-worth module, triennial): net worth by quintile, age group, and household type; asset-class splits (property vs financial). Same portal caveats as the rest of the inventory — prefer the file CDN paths.
  • Calibrate the donor wealth margins to these, alongside the existing income/demographic/tenure fits, so the joint income–wealth structure is disciplined by published NZ data.

Why it matters for the first published estimate: ignoring asset tests overstates AS eligibility and therefore the take-up gap — the exact overclaim a skeptical reviewer would attack first. It also flips the IDI limitation into an outside-in advantage: the IDI largely lacks asset variables, so an inside-the-lab analysis cannot apply the statutory asset tests — the calibrated open model can, and its wealth margins validate against the published Stats NZ distributions.

Part of the populace-nz epic (#343); pairs with the take-up engine plan's validation gates.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Read docs/nz-calibration-targets.md and the existing income, demographic, and tenure target rows first. Use the Stats NZ HES net-worth module, preferring file CDN paths, to add the listed net-worth and asset-class margins, then locate the calibration entry point that consumes the inventory. Done means wealth margins are calibrated alongside existing fits and validated against published NZ distributions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data-engineering
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
52/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.