The Australian Economic Review, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 325–6 Policy Forum: Intergen+10: Ten Years of the Intergenerational Reports Intergen+10: Clarifying the Crystal Ball Anthony Scott, Deborah Cobb-Clark and Philip Clarke ∗ Ten years ago, the first Intergenerational Re- port was published. After two further re- ports, it is recognised that they represented an unprecedented long-term view of the Com- monwealth Government’s fiscal outlook. The reports have been used to justify a range of government fiscal policies, whilst at the same time generating debate about the sustainability of population growth, immigration and pop- ulation ageing. The reports were both a ma- jor effort in shifting to a longer term view of the economy and a new effort in economic modelling. Similar to many attempts to forecast long into the future, the benefit of hindsight sug- gests some key lessons for how the modelling underpinning the reports should be conducted in the future. The Melbourne Institute convened a conference on 10 May 2012, 10 years since the publication of the first Intergenerational Re- port. The aim was to take stock of the reports to date, examine whether and how they could be improved and review several aspects of fis- cal policy related to the reports. The confer- ence was held in the Shine Dome, Canberra, and attended by 147 public servants, academics and others. Eleven papers were presented at the conference, a selection of which is presented in this Policy Forum. The papers cover reflections and commentary on the three reports and their methods, issues relating to the policy responses ∗ Scott and Cobb-Clark: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Mel- bourne, Victoria 3010 Australia; Clarke: Centre for Health Policy, Programs and Economics, Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne, Victo- ria 3010 Australia. Corresponding author: Scott, email <a.scott@unimelb.edu.au>. of the reports and a range of suggestions for improvement to the fourth Intergenerational Report. The conference began with a broad overview by David Gruen (Commonwealth Treasury), setting the scene and outlining a few areas where the reports require further develop- ment. Several papers then went on to cri- tique some of the reports’ assumptions and provide some advice for the conduct of fu- ture reports. Adrian Pagan (University of Syd- ney) raised a number of issues that would be useful to address in future reports. This in- cluded explicit consideration of the demand side in the modelling, more extensive use of sensitivity analysis, transparency (and repli- cability), plausibility and credibility. He sug- gested these aims could be achieved by the use of an independent body to prepare the pro- jections. Peter McDonald (Australian National University) focused on the assumptions used in the population projections and that migra- tion was particularly difficult to predict, which also influences assumptions about participa- tion. He suggested more careful modelling in the shorter term (10–15 years) and more use of scenario-based analysis in the longer term. Mark Cully (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) focused on immigration and sug- gested that immigrants are more than just sub- stitutes for labour, but are more productive, and this needs to be taken into account when exam- ining the fiscal impact of immigration in future reports. A number of the presentations also reflected on some of the specific policy issues that have arisen as a result of the Intergenera- tional Reports. Ralph Lattimore (Productivity C  2012 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd