National Institute Economic Review

This chapter is in two parts. The first part contains discussion of the current situation and a short-term forecast to end-1987. The second part looks at the medium term, beginning with an analysis of probable trends in public expenditure over the next five years. The medium-term outlook for the rest of the world is discussed in chapter II.

This article summarises research on the role of forward-looking behaviour in important sectors of a macro- econometric model. It is based on the work of a number of researchers at the National Institute over the last two years. Important changes are introduced into many central equations in the model We argue that on grounds of both the underlying theory and the plausibility of the empirical results, this work is a significant advance in explaining dynamic macro-economic behaviour.