ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on four aspects of the model – the use of a system approach to modelling time-use and expenditure, the forecasting of co-variates using an autoregression method, the use of geographical rezoning and constrained regression techniques to produce projected census distributions and finally the use of the model for the microsimulation of future scenarios. It presents a spatial microsimulation approach to the estimation of two distinct forms of consumption – household expenditure on telecommunications related services and household time-use. There has been considerable recent interest in the estimation of non-census variables at the small-area level using a range of approaches that go under the term spatial microsimulation. In the case of expenditure on internet service subscriptions the greatest increases are to be found in the rural and north-eastern peripheries of the region as well as those urban areas where internet uptake was estimated to be lowest in 2001.
