Central banks have long been in the forecasting game. Work on some of the first large-scale central bank models started in the 1960s at the US Federal Reserve, which sought to develop models of the economy to support policy-making. But for as long as the models have existed, they have been criticised for failing to capture important facets of the way economies work, both in theory and in practice.

The advent of inflation targeting as a central bank mandate, first laid down in legislation in