ABSTRACT
Model-based policy analysis seems to be subject to more competition in the AngloSaxon world (US, UK) than in the Netherlands or Norway. In the American institutional setting the preparation of budgetary and monetary policy is quite separated. Donihue and Kitchen (1997, Chapter 14 in this volume) describe how the ‘Troika’ in the US Administration, which comprises senior officials of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, the Department of the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget, comes to some kind of consensus about the forecast for the economy which acts as an input to policy-making of the US Government. Meanwhile, the staff of the Federal Reserve Board uses its own models and has its own philosophy on model-based policy analysis. Edison and Marquez (1998, Chapter 12 in this volume) provide a unique insight into the models-policy interaction in the decision-making process at the Federal Reserve System. A special feature of the American model industry is that, much more than in continental Europe, model-based economic forecasts are made by private and commercial institutes and agencies aimed at the commercial sector.
