• Global GDP growth will slow from 5.1 per cent in 2004 to 4.2 per cent in 2005; world trade growth will slow from 9.1 per cent to 6.3 per cent.

• The oil price is expected to remain above $50 a barrel, although in real terms it is well below the highs of the early 1980s.

• Nearly 25 per cent of the deterioration of the US current account since 1997 can be attributed to net trade in petroleum products, and reflects the oil price.

• A 10 per cent revaluation of the Chinese renminbi would have little impact on the US current account deficit.

• Rapid real house price growth will continue to support US housing investment in 2005 and 2006.

The Pensions Commission is to make its recommendations on pension policy reform later this year, in the light of comments on the challenges identified in its first Report. Widespread agreement on the need for such reform is partly a consequence of problems which have already surfaced, such as the insolvency of some pension schemes, moves to curtail benefits and mis-selling scandals. However the main impetus comes from the fact, clearly demonstrated by the Pensions Commission (2004), that for pensioners to enjoy the current relative standard of living in fifty years time will require people either to (i) retire later (ii) save more; or (iii) pay higher taxes. In the Commission's view the key issues are to find a consensus on the appropriate combination of these three, or of the alternative of lower pensioner incomes, and to find ways of bringing about such an outcome. We focus on aspects of such a reform and suggest one measure which could be implemented without further ado.

World growth accelerated to its fastest pace in 28 years in 2004, reaching 5.1 per cent. Global growth well above trend reflected strong domestic demand in the US, France, the UK, Canada and Spain, as well as oil exporting nations such as Russia, Mexico and Opec members. Japan and China also benefited from a strong boost to net trade, with world trade growth rising to 9.1 per cent following 3 years of sub—trend growth. GDP Growth in both the US and Japan rose well above recent trends last year, while the UK and Canada also performed relatively well. We also saw a strong acceleration in South America and Africa. The Euro Area remained weak relative to the other major economies, but nonetheless GDP growth accelerated by a full percentage point relative to 2003, to 1.7 per cent.

Over the past year East Asia has featured prominently in the international debate over the widening global economic imbalances. In particular, China has attracted much attention for the nature of its currency regime and its large trade surplus. Until recently, China pursued a strict policy of tightly fixing the value of the renminbi against the US dollar and, as a result, Chinese exports have remained highly competitive while the US current account position has deteriorated markedly. A substantial widening of China's trade surplus in the first half of this year has sparked a great deal of criticism from the US regarding China's exchange rate regime. Protectionist threats from the US and growing domestic imbalances in the Chinese economy have succeeded in prompting the Chinese authorities to reform their exchange rate regime. On 21 July, Chinese authorities announced the abandonment of the longstanding US dollar peg in favour of a managed system where the renminbi is fixed against a basket of currencies. The specifics of this new exchange rate regime provide ample scope for further renminbi appreciation; however, this will be an orderly and drawn-out process dictated by both economic and market conditions.

UK quarterly national accounts have undergone a rebasing to 2002 prices, together with a comprehensive revision to past data. The revised data paint a significantly different picture of the UK economy from that on which we based our last forecast. It now seems that the economy decelerated in the second half of 2004 and into the first quarter of 2005 (see chart 1), whereas the previous data indicated a more robust outcome for the second half of 2004, with greater momentum carrying over into 2005. The preliminary estimate of GDP suggests that the belowtrend growth continued into the second quarter of this year. The previous data indicated that the UK was operating at full capacity, while it would now seem that we are moving into a period where there is some spare capacity in the economy.

We investigate how central bank forecasts of GDP growth evolve through time, and how they are adapted in the light of official estimates of actual GDP growth. Using data for 1988–2005, we find that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has typically adjusted its forecast for growth over the coming four quarters by about a third of the unexpected component of estimated growth in the four quarters most recently ended. We were unable to find any clear signs of systematic errors in the FOMC's forecasts. UK data for 1998–2005 suggest that the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) did not adjust its forecasts in this way, and that there were systematic forecast errors, but the evidence from the latter part of the period 2001–5 tentatively shows a behaviour pattern closer to that of the FOMC, with no clear signs of systematic errors.

This paper has three aims. First, we summarise and thereby make readily available the historical time-series of quarterly density forecasts of year ahead RPIX (RPI excluding mortgage payments) inflation made by the National Institute for the period 1994Q1–2004Q4. Previous work has focused on those forecasts made in Q4 only. Secondly, we evaluate the quality of these density forecasts. Thirdly, with the benefit of hindsight we draw lessons for the future production and use of density forecasts.

This paper compares the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) forecasts for output, inflation and key public sector finance variables against the corresponding forecasts from HM Treasury (HMT), the Bank of England (Bank) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). We find that NIESR outperforms, on average, other major bodies in its forecasts for output and in particular inflation where simple scores are used. It also performs well on the forecasting of the government current budget surplus but not public sector net borrowing. Statistical estimates of accuracy provide a less clear picture but their reliability is blighted by the small sample size.

In this paper, we estimate the rate of return to first degrees, Masters degrees and PhDs in Britain using data from the Labour Force Survey. We estimate returns to broad subject groups and more narrowly defined disciplines, distinguishing returns by gender and controlling for variations in student quality across disciplines. The results reveal considerable heterogeneity in returns to particular degree programmes and by gender, which have important policy implications for charging students for the costs of their education.

We consider the measurement of performance in the public sector in general, focussing on local government and the provision of library services by English local authorities in particular. We will consider two methodologies that assess the performance of local authorities in terms of the efficiency with which they provide services and consider methods that allow us to account for exogenous influences on performance, such as the socio-economic profile of the population served by the authority. We find that although both methods' results appear similar, the implications for potential cost savings vary widely. Omitting to account for background factors leads to an overstatement of the level of inefficiency and hence the scope for reducing expenditure.

Pupils of religious foundation schools in England show superior educational performance over general (Local Education Authority) schools, the advantage having been estimated in previous studies at learning about a tenth faster for the average pupil by the age of leaving primary schooling (age 11+). In this study access to individual pupils' scores at SAT tests shows that the advantage of religious foundation schools is particularly great for lower-attaining pupils, with only the lowest tenth of those in religious schools attaining the scores of the lowest third in general schools.