100th Issue of the Review : Forecasting and Economic Policy

Extract

For good economic policy, two things are needed. First, there has to be clarity about objectives. The purpose of policy is to improve outcomes. The policymaker, therefore, has to know what an improved outcome would look like. There is, I think, not much dispute about this requirement: it is common ground that it would have been an improved outcome in Britain if unemployment and inflation had been lower and economic growth had been faster. There may be differences about the importance to be given to the various objectives: but that is a fairly minor matter.