Interaction between model builders and policy makers in the Norwegian tradition*

Since the early post-war period there has been in Norway a long and continuous tradition in the use of empirical models for economic policy-making within a remarkably stable institutional environment. The first comprehensive model, used in a real way for macro policy purposes, was constructed by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1959, implemented on a first-generation computer, and used by the Ministry of Finance as the first in a series of models that were at the centre of macroeconomic policy preparation and co-ordination.