Center for Virtual Simulation Experimental Education of Economics

Center for Virtual Simulation Experimental Education of Economics provides the school with experimental education and scientific research platform. The center was founded as the National Experimental Education Demonstration Center in 2008, and recorded as the National Virtual Simulation Experimental Education Center in 2014. The center has education labs and research labs.

Education Labs

Education labs include Game and Behavioral Analysis Lab, Finance and Insurance Simulation Lab, International Trade Practices Simulation Lab, Regional Economics Simulation Lab, Governmental Fiscal and Taxation Simulation Lab, Logistics Planning Simulation Lab, and Quantitative Analysis Lab. Each lab has tailored-made teaching facilities. There are over 240 computers equipped with software for econometric, statistical analysis and simulation, such as Eviews, SAS, Stata, Spss, Matlab, R, and Aren. We installed the SN Trade Training Simulation System, Yonyou Tax Inspection, Zhiyi Tax, Newgrand Public Financial Management, and other simulation software, and also purchased the Wind database. In addition, we developed experimental teaching software independently and compiled series of textbook. The laboratories could provide excellent the teaching facilities for theoretical and applied economics at Nankai University. We have effectively integrated resources to construct a multi-functional experimental teaching system, properly structured faculties with strong theoretical and experimental teaching capabilities, in order to continuously promote the education reform. Currently, we adopt 22 experimental curriculums for 5 undergraduate programs, 16 postgraduate programs, making notable achievements to equip students with creative spirit, and excellent practical capability.

Research Labs

With our resources about economic research and advanced IT facilities, we aim to provide data and computation facilities in economics and management to facilitate its development and innovation. The current research labs have hardware platform, software platform, and database.

The Laboratory for Economic Behaviors and Policy Simulation of Nankai University (LEBPS)

In 2021, The Laboratory for Economic Behaviors and Policy Simulation of Nankai University (LEBPS) was approved by the Ministry of Education as one of the 9 national pilot philosophy and social sciences laboratories. Focused on the research on behavioral and experimental economics, statistical learning and inference empowered by big data, artificial intelligence and digital economy, and regional economic growth and industrial development, LEBPS is intended to carry out strategic and prospective experimental research on major practical issues as well as social hot spots and difficulties, and is committed to promoting interdisciplinary integration and enhancing capabilities for original innovation. It has 5 specialized laboratories and 1 computing center under its administration, which are the Behavioral Game Analysis Laboratory, Nankai Smith Laboratory, Statistics and Data Science Laboratory, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy Laboratory, Regional Economic Application Laboratory and High-performance Data Computing Center respectively.

Hardware Platform

The hardware platform includes: (1) six DELL calculation workstations with 64G capacity and 4-core/8-core CPU, meeting the demand for continuous mass data computation; (2) a cloud platform for socio-economic quantitative analysis and study, with a high-performance computing cluster consisting of 4 sets of 16-core IBM computer, and a desktop virtualization platform consisting of 4 sets of IBM server with 20 concurrent users. The platforms provide parallel calculation, intelligent desktop virtualization, and data sharing services.

Software Platform

Computational softwares, such as STATA, MATLAB, MATHEMATICA, SPSS, are installed on workstations and data platforms. Basic demand for economics data management, statistical analysis, and econometric modeling has been met.

Database

We have access to China Industry Business Performance Database, China Customs Import and Export Database, population and economic census database, and other microeconomic database. We subscribed to the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Service Platform and EPS Data Analysis Platform. Meanwhile, we encourage faculties to develop specialized database.

Faculties and students can utilize the laboratory resources using the following methods. (1) Remote service portal: Internet technology was adopted to enable faculties and students to make the most use of the database, software, and high performance computing server regardless of time and location. In addition, we open up resources for specific projects; encourage teachers to apply for major and general program of National Social Sciences Fund, and major program of Ministry of Education of the PRC; support students to apply for “National University Student Innovation Program” and “100 projects” of Creative Research for the Undergraduates of Nankai University; and support students to participate in the “Challenge Cup”, and so on.