ABSTRACT
The political salience of many forecasts and the technical complexity of the forecasting process combine to create for the forecaster an important ethical dilemma. The role of forecasts in policy making is fascinating largely because it always involves an inherent dilemma of circularity. The core assumptions underlying a forecast, which represent the forecaster's basic outlook on the context within which the specific forecasted trend develops, are the major determinants of forecast accuracy. The forecaster, in all likelihood, was educated according to a tradition of scientific-technical rationality, having allegiance to a set of methods and techniques rather than to particular outcomes in a policy debate. Governments with limited resources to allocate, and citizens who rely upon public services and pay their costs, would seem on the surface to assume that forecasts of future need and cost are executed with objectivity.
