KITE MODEL SUITE
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Policy counterfactuals, in seconds.

Bringing state-of-the-art academic trade models into actual policy advisory. In active development — open source or on demand.

▸ Open the Lab Use KITE How it works
Download the white paper ↓
SECTION / 01 · APPLIED

Recent outputs using the KITE model.

KITE at Kiel Institute →
09 Jun 2026 · Kiel Policy Brief

Ukraine Support Tariff

A tariff on residual EU-Russia trade could raise roughly EUR 11-16 billion annually under higher short-run estimates, with larger losses for Russia than for the EU.

01 May 2026 · KITE Insta Analysis

US tariffs on EU automobile imports

A 25% US tariff on EU automobiles would hit Germany's automotive sector especially hard, with output losses near EUR 15 billion in the short run.

24 Mar 2026 · Kiel Policy Brief

Strait of Hormuz closure

A chokepoint closure propagates from energy through chemicals and fertilizers into food systems, with disproportionate effects on developing economies.

27 Jan 2026 · Kiel Policy Brief 202

EU-India trade deal

A comprehensive agreement could raise bilateral trade by 41-65% and increase real value added, by roughly 0.12-0.13% of GDP, in both the EU and India.

19 Jan 2026 · Kiel Trade and Tariffs Monitor

Greenland tariffs

Threatened US tariffs on selected European economies mainly hurt the targeted countries; Norway, the UK, and Germany are most exposed.

SECTION / 02 · PROCESS

Four steps. Same shape.

Baseline, scenario, update_equilibrium(), results. Click any step for the code.

One workflow, many models.

Sanctions and embargoes Non-tariff measures Carbon pricing and border adjustment Shipping routes and chokepoints Multinational production Up to 133 sectors Past and projected base years Scenario and parameter grids

Method

Counterfactuals, not forecasts — point estimates from calibrated baselines. Equations, derivations, and caveats: the white paper.

Calibrated on GTAP 12, OECD ICIO, WIOD, GLORIA, MacMap — and more. Public package examples are synthetic; policy applications use versioned baselines. Function reference and the worked example: package README ↗.

SECTION / 03 · TOOLS

Use KITE.

Run the Lab in your browser now, install the R package for full control — or let us run KITE for you.

IN THE BROWSER

KITE Lab

Shift a tariff, watch the world adjust. 81 economies, 7 sectors — live counterfactuals, computed privately on your device.

Available now No install
IN R

R package

Install KITE in R. Two open-source models, a worked example, and the shared workflow.

R ≥ 3.5 GPL-3 Open code
IN THE CLOUD

Cloud & server

We run KITE for you: scenarios on calibrated baselines, hosted models behind your own workflow, or API access.

On request Hosted API
LOCAL INSTALL

Install the R package.

Drop into your existing R environment. Version 26.09, GPL-3, R ≥ 3.5.

  • OPEN SOURCE Two models ship today: Caliendo-Parro 2015 and Chowdhry-Hinz-Kamin-Wanner 2024. More are coming.
  • REPLICABLE The solver returns convergence diagnostics, settings, scenario input, and processed outputs.
  • ON REQUEST The full suite, calibrated baselines, and API access: kite@kielinstitut.de.
# Install the public package (R >= 3.5.0)
remotes::install_github("julianhinz/KITE")

library(KITE)
packageVersion("KITE")  #> [1] '26.9'

# Quick start: synthetic 3-country, 2-sector economy,
# a 20% tariff war, both shipped models
Sys.setenv(KITE_RUN_EXAMPLE = "1")
source(system.file("examples", "example.R",
                   package = "KITE"))
#> CP2015 converged in 48 iterations
#> CHKW2022 converged in 53 iterations

Default public license: GPL-3. For calibrated initial conditions or alternative licensing terms, write to kite@kielinstitut.de.

CITE THIS WORK

Hinz, J., Mahlkow, H. & Wanner, J. (2025).

The KITE Model Suite: A Quantitative Framework for International Trade Analysis. KITE White Paper, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

URL: trade.kielinstitut.de/KTTM/KITE_whitepaper.pdf

BIBTEX RIS PDF
SECTION / 04 · ABOUT

The people flying the kite.

Built and maintained at the Kiel Institute — by a team that uses KITE for its own research, every day.

  • 2019 Started as an R port of the MATLAB code behind Hinz & Monastyrenko (2022). One Caliendo-Parro run took hours to converge.
  • 2020 First real-data scenarios — a US-China trade war on GTAP data, checked against the original implementation.
  • 2022 In standing use for policy questions, beginning with tariffs on Russian energy after the invasion of Ukraine.
  • 2024 The suite grows from one model to six.
  • 2026 Thirteen models, an open R package, and the browser Lab. KITE-Transfer is funded by the Joachim Herz Stiftung. The setup that once took hours now solves in under a second.
KS

Katalin Szabo

Project manager · Kiel Institute
TP

Trade Policy Research Group

Contributors · Kiel Institute
HOSTED AT Kiel Institute for the World Economy
Mail kite@kielinstitut.de
Code github.com/julianhinz/KITE
Web kielinstitut.de

CONTACT

Your question may be bigger than a tariff.

Scenario requests, custom baselines, API access, collaboration. Tell us what you need and we will build it with you.

✉  kite@kielinstitut.de