Fiscal policy simulations--a comparison of UK models.

In this article simulations of four different fiscal policy measures are compared using four of the main models of the UK economy, which are publicly available. Policy makers, lobbyists and economic analysts frequently require simulations of the effects of various policy measures. Until the advent of the ESRC Macroeconomic Modeling Bureau most work involved the simulation of different hypotheses under various conditions on the same model, as access to a wide range of models was extremely difficult to arrange. There were a few co-operative simulations by the various teams, Laury et al. (1978), for example, but the independent analyst could not hope to perform this work unaided, in part because of the need to learn all the different sets of modeling software, to get access to the various sites, let alone learn how to use the models and understand their various difficulties. The founding of the Warwick Bureau has altered all this and their annual reviews (Wallis, et al., 1985, 1986) have provided common documentation of the main published UK models and a careful analysis of their relative properties. Even more important from the point of view of the practitioner the models can all be run at Warwick using remote access and a common set of software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]