Quarterly Bulletin
National Account Articles
| 2007 Q3 | Extracting a better signal from uncertain data  (730k)(By Alastair Cunningham and Christopher Jeffery of the Bank's Conjunctural Assessment and Projections Division.) Most macroeconomic data are uncertain - they are estimates rather than perfect measures. One symptom of that uncertainty is the propensity of statistical agencies to revise their estimates in light of new information or methodological advances. While revisions should move estimates closer to the 'truth', the potential for early estimates to be revised poses challenges for forecasting and economic analysis. Over the past few years, Bank staff have undertaken a range of research into how best to deal with the ensuing uncertainty. The results of that research have been used for some time as part of the toolkit available to staff when briefing the Monetary Policy Committee. This article describes some further developments in that research effort aimed at refining the staff's toolkit. |
| 2006 Q4 | Measuring market sector activity in the United Kingdom (550k) (By Rohan Churm, Sylaja Srinivasan and Ryland Thomas of the Bank's Monetary Analysis Division, and Sanjiv Mahajan, Fenella Maitland-Smith and Geoff Tily of the Office for National Statistics (ONS)). A measure of private or market sector activity is useful for assessing demand pressures and productivity trends in the economy. This article discusses the practical issues involved in constructing a measure of the market sector's gross value added (MSGVA) for the United Kingdom. It looks at the existing estimates currently constructed by the ONS and the Bank of England using National Accounts data, and discusses how the Bank of England uses these estimates when analysing demand pressures in the economy. |
| Spring 2005 |
Dealing
with data uncertainty
(95k) (by James Ashley, Ronnie Driver, Simon Hayes and Christopher Jeffery of the Bank's Conjunctural Assessment and Projections Division). True values of key macroeconomic variables are unobservable and can only be estimated. A key question for the Monetary Policy Committee is how best to take account of the resultant uncertainty in its economic assessment. Official estimates of economic variables are produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and some private sector organisations publish surveys of business activity that may also give clues as to the underlying state of the economy. This article presents a simple methodology for deriving 'best guesses' of the true values of economic variables by weighting together official estimates and information from business surveys. Indicators
of short-term movements in business investment |
| Winter 2002 | The
external balance sheet of the United Kingdom: recent developments
(98k) (by Robert Westwood of the Bank's Monetary and Financial Statistics Division and John Young of the Bank's Domestic Finance Division). The external balance sheet (or international investment position) gives the most complete picture of the stock position of a country in its financial transactions with the rest of the world. The very breadth of coverage of the data leads inevitably to problems of measurement and valuation. Nevertheless, subject to certain qualifications, the data can throw some light on macroeconomic and financial stability issues related to the United Kingdom's cross-border financial links. This article, one in an annual series, discusses the recent evolution of the United Kingdom's external balance sheet, reviewing along the way some of the main methodological issues that impinge on an interpretation of the data. It concludes that, despite a persistent current account deficit, the balance of probability is that the United Kingdom still has net external assets, or at least the capacity to generate net investment income from overseas. There are also some grounds for optimism that the structure of its assets and liabilities has left the United Kingdom in a fairly strong position to withstand financial shocks. |
| Spring 2002 | Building
a real-time database for GDP(E) |
| Autumn 2001 | Measuring
capital services in the United Kingdom |
| November 1998 | Recent
changes to the national accounts, balance of payments
and monetary statistics In addition, a number of other significant changes are implemented in this year's Blue Book. Price and volume series have been rebased to 1995 = 100; survey data grossed from a more comprehensive register of businesses are included in the National Accounts for the first time; and there are extensive methodological changes and data revisions, including a new approach to measuring the output of the public sector. |
