ABSTRACT
Forecasting of the national economy is well established in the UK, and is carried out by both public» and private-sector bodies. Given the importance of forecasting in national and corporate policy formulation, significant resources have been devoted to the development of sophisticated models of the national economy and population. However, forecasting at the subnational scale is far less advanced, despite the efforts devoted to developing models over the last 20–30 years, and the need for local forecasts for planning the spatial allocation of resources by central and local government, stimulated by the requirement for strategic planning by county councils. Operational local forecasts also treat the economy in a much less sophisticated fashion, with less disaggregation and fewer interrelationships considered, than national models. Moreover, methodological developments in the UK have tended to lag well behind those in the USA, where model-building began earlier, models have become more sophisticated, and the number of forecasting models in operation is far greater. However, differences in size between the USA and the UK are such that in some instances national forecasting in the UK is like state forecasting in the USA.
