Reconstruction of the course of demand and output during the first half of this year is still extremely difficult as a result of distortions caused by the miners' strike in the first quarter and, to a lesser extent, by the aftermath of the United States dock strike last year. In addition, doubts are now openly expressed by Central Statistical Office about the validity of the seasonal adjustment process applied to the expenditure estimate of GDP (and perhaps the income estimate too) in the first quarter. This is estimated have fallen, in real terms, by 3¾ per cent, compared with falls of about 2½ and 1 per cent in the income and output measures respectively.

Production in the industrial countries has been increasing a little faster than we suggested in May—notably in the United States, where there was a sharp rise in the rate of economic growth in the second quarter. But our forecast of the growth in the aggregate real output of the members of OECD is still in the 5-5½ per cent range for this year. We put it a little higher for 1973, when we expect a slightly slower rate of expansion in North America to be outweighed by faster growth in Japan and Western Europe.

Building societies play an important part in the collection of savings in the personal sector and dominate lending for private house purchase. Quite apart from its intrinsic interest as a description of the operation of a major group of financial intermediaries, an account of building society behaviour should therefore be of some interest to those concerned with forecasting private dwelling investment or the allocation of the personal sector's flow of funds.

Figures published recently in Sweden illustrate the implications of Britain's failure to improve productivity in the 1960s as quickly as continental Western Europe. Though wage costs per unit of output in manufacturing industry have risen faster in Britain than in other major industrial countries, the statistics show that employers' total payments per hour of work are now lower here than in almost any industrial country except Japan.