An economic model is a rough approximation of some factors that affect an economy; this is fed with some approximate numbers or best guesses (possibly influenced by who made the guesses); the result may be interesting but it’s unlikely to be correct. Even the BBC (sometimes) agrees with this.
The BBC have produced an entertaining and informative reality check for those of us who are confused by the bombardment of contradictory economic ‘facts’ with which we are assailed. Here’s how they begin:
” As the EU referendum campaign continues you will be seeing lots of headlines about how much Brexit would cost or benefit the UK economy, or indeed how much staying in will cost the economy.
“Now, some of these figures will be plucked out of the air, but some of them will be based on serious economic modelling – carried out by folk with brains the size of planets, most likely swimming around in think tanks.
“Should you believe all of them, some of them or none of them and how do you know which to treasure and which to discard?“
And here’s the link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35862618
Highly recommended.
And the READ MORE link at the bottom will take you to a collection of snippets from those who know, or ought to know better, what they are talking about. Gentle knock-about fun. Here, if you want to go directly:
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35603388
This EU Won't Work 