The Bank of England's forecasting platform: COMPASS, MAPS, EASE and the suite of models

This paper introduces the Bank of England's new forecasting platform and provides examples of how it can be applied to practical forecasting problems. The platform consists of four components: COMPASS, a structural central organising model; a suite of models, used to fill in the gaps in the economics of COMPASS and provide cross-checks on the forecast; MAPS, a macroeconomic modelling and projection toolkit; and EASE, a user interface. The platform has been in use since the end of 2011 in support of production of the projections produced for the Monetary Policy Committee’s quarterly Inflation Reports. In this paper we provide a full description of COMPASS, including discussion of its estimation and its properties. We also illustrate how the suite of models can be used to mitigate some of the trade-offs inherent in building a projection with a central organising model such as COMPASS, and discuss the role of the suite in addressing problems of model misspecification.