Robert Chote and Ed Balls have exchanged letters on the latter’s proposal that the OBR should provide independent scrutiny and certification of political parties’ proposed manifesto commitments on spending and tax.

The economy has recovered much more slowly over the past three years than the OBR expected, but the impact on the public finances has been relatively modest in large part because our over-optimism has been concentrated in those areas of nominal income and spending that are relatively lightly taxed: investment rather than consumer spending and…

The OBR uses a large-scale macroeconomic model to help produce our economic forecast. Briefing paper No. 5: The macroeconomic model sets out a detailed description of the latest version of the model.

This speech by Robert Chote describes the role of the OBR and how it compares to the structure of other fiscal councils around the world. It also looks at how the OBR has made a difference to the fiscal forecasting process and improved transparency of the official forecasts for the UK economy and public finances.

Our third Fiscal sustainability report published on 17 July shows that further tax increases or spending cuts are likely to be needed after the current fiscal consolidation to help meet the costs of an ageing population

Robert Chote has written a letter to Andrew Tyrie MP in response to the TSC report on Budget 2013.  

Robert Chote discussed what difference the creation of the OBR had made to UK fiscal policy in the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Spring Lecture in London      

Our Budget forecast was published on 20 March alongside the Budget. It contains forecasts for the UK economy and public finances to 2017-18 and our assessment of whether the Government is likely to achieve its fiscal mandate and supplementary target. The full document and supporting information is available on the main EFO page.

March 2013 All policy costings presented to the Office for Budget Responsibility at Budget 2013 were scrutinised and certified. The Budget 2013 policy costings document sets out the methodologies underpinning these various costings. The OBR identified costings for policy measures which it deemed to be particularly uncertain – these are listed in annex B of the…

Robert Chote has written a letter to the Prime Minister today regarding the reference to the OBR in the speech of March 7th on the economy.  

December 2012 The HM Treasury Autumn Statement 2012 policy costings document sets out the methodologies underpinning the cost estimates of measures announced at this fiscal event. All policy costings presented to the Office for Budget Responsibility that were included in the 2012 Autumn Statement were scrutinised and certified. The OBR has identified costings for policy measures which it deemed…

The Chancellor announced today that the excess cash held at the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing facility will be transferred to the Exchequer. This notice sets out our initial take on what this means for the public finances. We will make a more detailed assessment on the impact on the public finances when we publish…

This paper presents a small model of the UK economy extended to take account of credit risk premia and unconventional monetary policy. It can be used to run simulations or provide alternative economic scenarios. The model can be applied to provide some indication of how the stance of monetary policy might adjust in response to…

This working paper reassesses the size of the cyclical adjustment coefficients considering a range of approaches. Using these coefficients and the OBR’s historical output gap series we produce an updated historical series for structural net borrowing. We have also published a database of all the major tax policy measures announced in Budgets since 1970.