Verification and Validation of Scientific and Economic Models

As modeling techniques become increasingly popular and effective means for simulating real-world phenomena, it becomes increasingly important to enhance or verify our confidence in them. Verification and validation techniques are neither as widely used nor as formalized as one would expect when applied to simulation models. In this paper, we present our methods and results through two very different case studies: a scientific model and an economic model. We show that we were able to successively verify the simulations and, in turn, identify general guidelines on the best approach to a new simulation experiment. We also draw conclusions on effective verification and validation techniques and note their applicability.