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A selection of macroeconomic models used, or intended for, economic forecasting or policy analysis in the four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), is presented in this volume. New features and model applications are discussed and the models used by the Ministries of Finance are evaluated, with special attention to the role of relative prices and their treatment of the supply side. In addition there is a systematic comparison of results from model simulations on the main macroeconomic models in the four Nordic countries. The papers fall naturally into two sections. In Part One the focus is on the short-to-medium term models; in Part Two the focus switches to a presentation of three models that may all be classified as applied general equilibrium (AGE) models

A selection of macroeconomic models used, or intended for, economic forecasting or policy analysis in the four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), is presented in this volume. New features and model applications are discussed and the models used by the Ministries of Finance are evaluated, with special attention to the role of relative prices and their treatment of the supply side. In addition there is a systematic comparison of results from model simulations on the main macroeconomic models in the four Nordic countries. The papers fall naturally into two sections. In Part One the focus is on the short-to-medium term models; in Part Two the focus switches to a presentation of three models that may all be classified as applied general equilibrium (AGE) models

In this commentary we discuss and elaborate on a number of topics that have been raised in the articles in this issue. The first topic treated is causality. All scientists are aware of the difficulties of making causal inferences in non‐experimental settings, and in many cases arguments are forwarded that support the causal interpretation of the reported relationships. Questions of bi‐directional causality, nonlinear relationships and the importance of omitted variables are discussed, as is the supporting evidence that in some cases comes from experimental studies. The second topic is the level of analysis employed in the empirical analyses and the difficulty of interpreting findings at a different level of aggregation than the level applied in these analyses. In this context, the importance of applying a person‐orientation is pointed out to ensure that the findings are interpretable at the level of the single individual. Even in individual‐level analyses, this can be problematic if one relies on group statistics produced within a variable‐oriented framework. The third topic concerns how to handle interactions and nonlinear relationships. The fourth topic concerns the importance of improving measurements so that a good correspondence is achieved between them and the theoretical conceptualisations. The fifth and last topic is concerned with the argument that different ways of investigating the generalisability of the results to different populations should be tried.