Welcome to the Virtual DSGE Lab!

Author

Virtual DSGE Lab Group

Published

August 1, 2026

Version: Thales 1.0.1

🛠️ 🏎️ SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED: Active Updates & Platform Maintenance Under Way 🏎️ 🛠️

We are currently implementing some updates to the core engine and modelling suite of Virtual DSGE Lab:

  • Preparations for adding Smets-Wouters (2007) model
  • Minor fixes

As a result, you might experience interruptions to some of the functions on the website. These areas are likely to experience issues. Maintainance is expected to end by 2 PM UK Time. Thank you for your patience!

Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models are the cornerstone of contemporary quantitative macroeconomics research, central banking, and economic policymaking.

The project Virtual DSGE Lab is a fully online, freely maintained, and open-access tool designed to make the workhorse machinery of macro-econometric modelling transparent, accessible, and deployable to support economists, students, teachers, and researchers across the global macro-modelling community.

As the suite of available models expands over the upcoming releases, particular emphasis will be placed on policy components—in line with the original view of DSGE as a laboratory for assessing and forecasting the impact of policy interventions on macroeconomic outcomes.

Current Release: Thales 1.0.1

  • Interactive DSGE Simulation Engine: Explore macroeconomic and policy transmission in structural models in your browser. Toggle with structural, shocks, and policy rules to examine macroeconomic and policy transmission in the model economy.
  • Dedicated Cloud Infrastructure: Powered by a 24/7 Ubuntu Linux server running native GNU Octave and Dynare via a Python/Shiny. No local installation is required of users.
  • Dynamic Feedback Loop: Toggle deep structural parameters, policy rules, and shock variances for instant live calculation of impulse response functions (IRFs) and macroeconomic transmission channels.
  • Full Dynare Compatibility: Computation of equilibrium policy and transition functions underlying IRF simulations is run on-demand by server via GNU Octave and Dynare 7, via an optimised oct2py backend bridge.
  • Fully free and open source: The software is provided freely and maintained voluntarily — interested in collaborating?

Thales 1.0.1 Supported Models

  • Real Business Cycle (RBC) model with an interactive fiscal policy module — Go to RBC model
  • Canonic RANK model with time-dependent nominal rigidities and monetary policy rules — Go to NK model
  • Expectations Frictions module piloting state-space sticky expectations, building on Mankiw and Reis (2002) and Carroll (2003) for hump-shaped IRFs — Go to Sticky NK
    • Piloting/beta version for scaling up/deploying in all other models.

Pipeline:

Release Thales 1.1+

  • Smets-Wouters Model: Medium-scale empirical DSGE framework with full structural frictions (Smets and Wouters, 2007).
  • One-Asset HANK: Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian model with household wealth distribution dynamics.
  • Sequence-space module: powered with native SSJ (sequence-jacobian 1.0) in Python (Auclert et al., 2020).
  • A Flexible Deviation from FIRE toggles for behavioural under-reactive/over-reactive expectations in sequence space DSGE/HANK (Lenney & Rosso, 2026).

Release Thales 2.0

  • In-House Medium-Scale DSGE Model, Pre-Estimated for Open-Access Structural Forecasting

References for Thales 1.0.1

  • Adjemian, S., M. Juillard, F. Karamé, W. Mutschler, J. Pfeifer, M. Ratto, N. Rion, and S. Villemot (2026). Dynare: Reference Manual, Version 7. Dynare Working Papers, No. 87, CEPREMAP, Paris.
  • Galí, J. (2015). Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework and Its Applications. Princeton University Press.

🛠️ Quick Updates & Patch Notes

v1.0.1 — Aug 14, 2026

  • ✅ Patch maintenance terminated at 5 PM UK Time.
  • Deployed/released sticky NK to test sticky expectations module
  • Implemented self-contained sticky expectations module for pilot
  • Started Safety Car status banner 9.15 AM UK Time 🏎 .

v1.0.1 — Aug 13, 2026

  • ✅ Patch maintenance terminated at 9 PM UK Time.
  • Log-linearisation of RBC with fiscal policy module for IRFs simulations.
  • Fixed bugs in NK model pipeline, expanded toggles and demand-side shocks.
  • Improved plotting functions for IRF simulations.
  • Added Safety Car status banner system for scheduled maintenance 🏎 .

v1.0.0 — Aug 12, 2026

  • 🚀 Initial public release of version Thales 1.0 (Pilot Version).

Full Release Notes →

Reuse

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@software{virtual_dsge_lab2026,
  author = {{Virtual DSGE Lab}},
  title = {Thales 1.0: {Web-Based} {Interactive} {DSGE} {Simulation}
    {Engine}},
  date = {2026-08-01},
  url = {https://virtual-dsge-lab.duckdns.org},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Virtual DSGE Lab. 2026. “Thales 1.0: Web-Based Interactive DSGE Simulation Engine.” https://virtual-dsge-lab.duckdns.org.