Conference on judgement and combination in forecasting and policy models hosted by the Bank of England and sponsored by EABCN, cemmap and CAMA, 20-21 March 2014, London

Judgement and expert knowledge is widely thought to be important in the successful practice of forecasting. For policymakers, forecasts also embody judgements about the state of the economy, the transmission of shocks and optimal policy responses which necessitate the use of structural models. DSGE models estimated by Bayesian methods have become popular, partly because the models have well defined structural interpretations and because the Bayesian framework allows judgments about model properties to be embodied in priors. There is, however, uncertainty about both model parameters and the correct model. This conference aims to bring together policymakers and academics interested in these issues.

Todd Clark (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Centre for Economic Policy Research), Barbara Rossi (Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Centre for Economic Policy Research), Frank Schorfheide (University of Pennsylvania and Centre for Economic Policy Research) are among the speakers.