A Course In Macroeconomic Modelling And Forecasting

This textbook is a thorough introduction to the theory and practice of macroeconomic modelling. It provides a rigorous exposition of the theory of modelling and examines the main UK and European macroeconomic models. Policy-relevant conclusions are drawn from the models, including new areas such as wealth effects and rational expectations. The text compares UK macroeconomic models with key US and European models, with an emphasis on policy analysis and the ERM.

Macroeconomic Modelling in a Changing World Towards a Common Approach Edited by Chris Allen and Stephen Hall Practical economic model building has changed enormously over the last twenty years. Econometrics has become much more sophisticated with the introduction of cointegration and non-stationary time series analysis. The use of economic theory in the form of complex non-linear cross equation restrictions is now much more widespread and the explicit modelling of expectations and credibility effects is more satisfactory. This has meant that the old style macroeconomic models which were complex by virtue of their size alone have been replaced by a generation of new models which embody complex theory and estimation to provide more superior forecasting and policy tools. Macroeconomic Modelling in a Changing World outlines the modelling approach which has been adopted at the Centre for Economic Forecasting at the London Business School, one of the world’s leading research institutes into macroeconomic modelling, in building its own models. Using explicit examples and illustrations, the authors examine the latest state-of-the-art models, and answer questions such as: How are modern econometrics used by model builders? How should we deal with structural change? How should expectations be modelled? How are models used in practice? Economics

This work describes how the discipline has adapted to changing demands by adopting new insights from economic theory and by taking advantage of the methodological and conceptual advances within time series econometrics.

Macroeconometric models, in many ways the flagships of the economist's profession in the 1960s, came under increasing attack from both theoretical economist and practitioners in the late 1970s. Critics referred to their lack of microeconomic theoretical foundations, ad hoc models of expectations, lack of identification, neglect of dynamics and non-stationarity, and poor forecasting properties. By the start of the 1990s, the status of macroeconometric models had declined markedly, and had fallen completely out of, and with, academic economics. Nevertheless, unlike the dinosaurs to which they often have been likened, macroeconometric models have never completely disappeared from the scene. This book describes how and why the discipline of macroeconometric modelling continues to play a role for economic policymaking by adapting to changing demands, in response, for instance, to new policy regimes like inflation targeting. Model builders have adopted new insights from economic theory and taken advantage of the methodological and conceptual advances within time series econometrics over the last twenty years. The modelling of wages and prices takes a central part in the book as the authors interpret and evaluate the last forty years of international research experience in the light of the Norwegian 'main course' model of inflation in a small open economy. The preferred model is a dynamic model of incomplete competition, which is evaluated against alternatives as diverse as the Phillips curve, Nickell-Layard wage curves, the New Keynesian Phillips curve, and monetary inflation models on data from the Euro area, the UK, and Norway. The wage price core model is built into a small econometric model for Norway to analyse the transmission mechanism and to evaluate monetary policy rules. The final chapter explores the main sources of forecast failure likely to occur in a practical modelling situation, using the large-scale nodel RIMINI and the inflation models of earlier chapters as case studies.

Providing a description of the state of modelling in global and national economies, this title introduces an approach to modelling that can readily be adopted for use in understanding how economies work and in generating forecasts for decision-makers and policy-makers alike.

Drawing on interviews with the UK government's Panel of Independent Forecasters, the author shows how economic models, forecasts and policy analysis depend crucially upon the judgements of economists.