PolicyEngine / PolicyEngine/policyengine-core

Soft definition periods

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enhancement
Dominant language
Python
Stars
22
Forks
30
Avg merge
14h 33m
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Description

Definition periods in PolicyEngine Core are fixed: each variable must have exactly one time period for which it can have distinct values. Policy in country models often involves mid-year parameter changes or other ways that more flexible time period management might be useful.

Core has some shortcuts for this (e.g. set_input_divide, options=[ADD, DIVIDE]) but a more elegant solution to reduce the development burden on country models would just be to simplify all this into more autonomous Simulation behaviour: e.g. if I said my employment income was £30,000 per year, calculate my income tax in March, we really shouldn't need any country-specific logic describing how the time periods interact with each other here. The only thing we need to specify at the country level is whether each variable is a stock or a flow, because this implies different behaviour is correct:

  • wealth in 2022 is 450k => wealth in 2022-01 is 450k
  • income in 2022 is 30k => income in 2022-01 is 2.5k

Contributor guide

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue proposes more autonomous Simulation behavior for flexible definition periods, including stock-versus-flow handling, and mentions set_input_divide and options=[ADD, DIVIDE]. Start by reading those existing mechanisms and the Simulation behavior around time periods. The desired design and completion criteria are not specified, so clarify the scope before implementing.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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