Australian Macro-Econometric Models and Their Construction - A Short History

The paper provides a short account of the major complete macroeconometric models that have been constructed in Australia. Initially these were by academics but later both the Treasury and Reserve Bank of Australia developed these for policy analysis and forecasting, so that the history focusses a good deal on what was developed in those institutions. The basic strategy of the paper is to set out the modelling themes that were occurring overseas and then to discuss the same variants in Australia. In a number of instances Australian research might be considered to have been well ahead of overseas developments.