Since IB bankers always make a big deal about how fantastic they are at modelling and that it is one of the best things you learn from IB. Can bankers actually model the epidemy to forecast peak and mortality rate? Maybe given that they have some medical/epidemiology knowledge.
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Big difference between financial modeling and the type of modeling you're talking about
are you dumb or are you stupid
Yes. In addition to reading 10-Ks, bankers also all have Fauci-level understandings of the spread of infectious disease.
you cannot even find the raw excel data. so good luck. if you have a higher math and biology background, you can model some of the curves with basic assumptions but there are so many exogenous factors driving the curvature and variables like social distancing / masks that you cannot model. however if you get the data, you can get a sense what a logical curve may look like. try to get historical data by geography, you won’t find much.
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OP- here
kinda knew that was a stupid question but really wanted to extend to what extend the modelling skills are transferable outside of finance since they are so talked about.
I suppose I see what you're trying to ask, but I think it is worth recognizing that the financial models used in banking are not terribly complex in the grand scheme of things. A simple epidemiological model like an SIR model could definitely be created in excel, but for anything of legitimate scientific value you're going to want to work with a general-purpose programming language. At that point, you're well beyond the skillset that IB equips you with, and that's only considering the "tools" for creating your model. The math is a whole different challenge. That's not to say that there aren't bankers who are capable of that type of work – just that they didn't learn it from banking.
Not sure why there are so many people dumping on this question. Epidemiologists are social scientists, so their papers and models are similar to what you might find in Econ or public policy circles.
Certainly different from financial modeling but not something that is so far removed as to be unrecognizable. I’d suggest the op simply google “covid-19 models” and take a look. Assumptions will focus on infection fatality rate, case fatality rate, rate of spread, icu beds per 1000 people, population demographics etc.
Know this is a quasi-troll post, but yes; most good analysts could probably build a decent (excel) framework to project viral spread, especially if they have some sort of econometric background. However, any model is only as good as its A) input data and B) assumptions, and those are both — to put it kindly — all over the place right now. So no, some bored kid at Citi isn’t going to produce a spot-on forecast, unless he gets really lucky with guesses for “A” and “B.”
Yup -- didn't mean to imply experts currently have 'MNPI.' They've got better-suited forecasting tools, of course, but at the moment that's not the limitation.
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