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The Economic Situation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2020
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Our provisional estimate of the British economy's mid-year position is this : by the second quarter total national output had recovered quite sharply from its first quarter drop, to a point some 2-2½ per cent higher than at the end of 1962. So a belated recovery has begun—belated, because national output at the end of 1962 was no higher than the 1962 or 1961 average.
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- Copyright © 1963 National Institute of Economic and Social Research
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page 4 note (1) Compared to a year earlier, the rise in industrial production was 2 per cent, and we are suggesting an increase of only 1 per cent in gross domestic product compared with the second quarter of last year.
page 5 note (1) However, in addition to a slower rate of immigration in recent months, there has also been a rather faster rate of emigration. We do not know how big these changes have been—regular figures are not published; but they might possibly have been big enough to slow down appreciably the increase in the potential labour supply.
page 7 note (1) Statistical Appendix, table 13.
page 8 note (1) There was a small rise in the basic series which disappears after seasonal adjustment. But owing to the violent quarter- to-quarter movements of the series, there is no very clear evidence of seasonality, and the adjustment factors have a big margin of error.
page 8 note (2) 1962 III is the latest figure now available.
page 9 note (1) 7/8ths of the 1963 III information is available.
page 9 note (2) National Institute Economic Review, May 1963.
page 9 note (3) Daily Hansard, Wednesday, 3 April 1963, col. 469. The Chancellor continued ‘The forecast of trend is, of course, consistent with the picture presented by the Estimates …’
page 9 note (4) See Economic Trends, July 1963, for official comment on this.
page 9 note (5) Work in progress in the construction industry consists of work done and not yet paid for. It appears that these figures are estimated by assuming that payments automatically lag behind work done; so there is a sharp fall in the figures for work in progress when output dips and an offsetting rise when output recovers. In fact, in the first quarter of 1963, the expenditure figures of investment in building fell about as much as contractors' work done, and there is no evidence of a big real change in work in progress.
page 11 note (1) It is likely that there is a sharp initial impact on car- buying when there is a change in the rate at which real income is rising. There has been such a change in the past year :
page 11 note (2) The figures of consumers' expenditure on cars do not move exactly with new car registrations, of course. First, consumers' expenditure includes the purchase of second-hand cars from the business sector; and new car registrations include business sector purchases, and purchases of motor cycles.
page 11 note (3) This means that a person can now obtain furniture or bedding under a hire purchase or credit sale agreement without paying a deposit provided (i) that he had paid at least a quarter of the money owed under the old agreement, and (ii) that the total amount owed under the new agreement did not exceed that which had been payable under the old one. If however there is an excess, a 10 per cent deposit must be paid on the excess.
page 12 note (1) The figures will probably show a rebound in stock- building from the fourth quarter of last year to the second quarter of this one : but this will be more statistical than real (see page 9).
page 12 note (2) This was also our forecast in May : National Institute Economic Review, May 1963, no. 24, table 1, page 5. But our present forecast implies a slightly higher level at the end of the year, since the official figures for expenditure at the end of last year, has been revised upwards a little. They now provide a more reasonable starting-point for comparisons than the estimates available three months ago.
page 13 note (1) This, however, was partly due to a reclassification of transactions; transfers of official United Kingdom securities from overseas official account to overseas Central Bank account are now classed as disinvestment, because of the redefinition of overseas sterling holdings. (Economic Trends, June 1963, page v.)
page 14 note (1) Statistical Appendix, table 17.
page 14 note (2) Almost three-quarters of Britain's sugar imports come in under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement : and by May of this year this negotiated price was only 55 per cent of the free world market price of sugar. Of course, the normal pattern has been the other way round; over the period 1960- 62, the Commonwealth price was on average some 77 per cent above the world price.
page 18 note (1) This is the net change in the United Kingdom's sterling liabilities to countries in the overseas sterling area and in their holdings of gold and non-sterling area currencies (as given in Economic Trends, June 1963). The figures in table 28 of the Statistical Appendix cover a rather narrower range of h oldings (see Economic Review, August 1962, page 69).
page 18 note (1) Statistical Appendix, table 23.
page 20 note (1) See in particular the report of the Brookings Institution (reported in The Times and The Financial Times, Monday, July 29th).