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UK economic indicators


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List of indicators:

  • House Prices

House Prices A UK report

Nationwide and Halifax Banks, together with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) published the assessments of monthly price changes. Increasing house prices will promote consumer spending and the economy in the short term. Increasing trend also requires rising of interest rates. The longer-term forecasts are more complex. Strong reports will be Sterling positive in the short term. The longer-term conclusions are unfavorable, especially as a sharp recession in the sector can destabilize the economy as a whole. Now some remarks are concerning the economy of the United Kingdom. United Kingdom has 60.27 million people and occupies 21st rank in the world in terms of population in mid 2004.

National growth rate in UK was 0.3% during the 1975-2002 (according to data obtained from UNDP HD Indicators), and this was much lower comparing to the high-income countries' growth of 0.6 %. The amount of citizens who live below the income poverty line is 12.5% of UK's population, and it is 50% of the median household income. Improved water source are accessible to all the people in UK. The percent of school-age population as it denoted in gross primary enrollment, with both male and female enrolled equitably, is 101%. Adult Literacy rate is 99%. In terms of human development index, UK occupies 12th place among 177 countries of the world. Gross National income of United Kingdom is $ 1680.6 billions (2003).

This means that UK has the fourth largest economy in the world. The country is a member of OECD. In 2003, purchasing power parity was estimated as US $ 27,460, Per capita GNI. In the same year, average annual growth rate of GDP was 2.2 %. Almost 70% of GDP in the UK is accounted for by private consumption, in concordance with the expenditure method for calculating national income. About National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) provides monthly estimation of GDP, totalizing disparate data into a single and easily understood measure. Martin Weale, NIESR Director, and his colleagues describe the process of producing of monthly indicator in the February 2005 issue of the Economic Journal. It is based on movements in the monthly series of data for manufacturing output, industrial production, and retail sales.

The data of the third month is being forecasted relying on two months' data for any calendar quarter, using standard statistical techniques. Such forecasts are base for estimation for the growth in GDP in calendar quarters. The estimates are supposed to retrace the first estimate of GDP growth published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and anticipate it by about three weeks. The National Institute has been publishing the indicator since 1998. To date, only three occasions show when the error has been as big as 0.3% of the GDP in absolute size. Two of these mistakes have been made due to unusual events, which are the fuel protests in September 2000 and the Golden Jubilee in June 2002.

The third occasion is associated with the Princess of Wales' funeral in September 1997. Standard forecasting method performed badly because of disrupted data of the third month of the quarter and this caused two of these three large errors. NIESR has published estimates of GDP growth for the other twenty-five quarters. Among them, eleven have had errors of 0.1 percentage points, four have had errors of 0.2 percentage points, and nine have been exact. Scottish Index of Leading Economic Indicators The Bank of Scotland has developed a new tool to present an early indication of turning points in the Scottish business cycle. It is called Scottish Index of Leading Economic Indicators, and it is being published on a quarterly basis. The Index is based on several indices such as Business Optimism, Housing Starts, New Orders, and Car Registrations; its development goes up to 1986.

Interpretation of the series is complicated by considerable revisions to the data. Revisions to GDP became very common lately, generally because of the resulting problems caused in the administration of economic policy. The monitoring of key economic variables that have a tendency to move in advance of growth in the whole economy has become current practice in many countries, notably in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Scottish Index of Leading Economic Indicators was designed by the Bank of Scotland in order to provide an early indication of changes in economic activity.


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