Quarterly Bulletin
Regional Issues Articles
| Autumn 2003 | The
information content of regional house prices: can they be
used to improve national house price forecasts? 
(104k)(by Rob Wood of the Bank's Structural Economic Analysis Division). It is often suggested that house price movements in the South East lead, or even cause, movements in the rest of the United Kingdom. If this were the case then house price inflation in the South East would be useful when forecasting national house price inflation. There are plausible channels through which such a 'ripple effect' could operate. But tests for patterns of regional price changes consistent with the effect give mixed results. There is evidence that regional price changes were consistent with the South East playing a leading role in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but not during other periods. So it is important to understand the nature of the shock to the housing market before concluding that a given house price change in London and the South East has implications for house prices in other regions. |
| Spring 2003 | The
Bank's regional Agencies
(65k) (by Phil Eckersley, the Bank's Agent for Northern Ireland and Pamela Webber, of the Bank's Inflation Report and Bulletin Division). This article describes the work of the Bank's regional Agencies, updating that published in the November 1997 Quarterly Bulletin. It outlines, in particular, the contribution of the Agencies to the work of the Monetary Policy Committee. |
| Summer 2001 | Can
differences in industrial structure explain divergences
in regional economic growth? During the early to mid-1990s, the pace of economic growth in the South was broadly comparable with that in the rest of the United Kingdom. During 1996–98, however, the pace of activity in the South strengthened considerably relative to the rest of the country. This article investigates one possible explanation for divergences in growth between the two regions—namely differences in the relative importance of the manufacturing and service sectors. The results suggest that such differences in industrial structure do not account for the majority of the regional divergences in growth. Rather, it appears that they are explained mostly by a pick-up in population growth and stronger service sector activity in the South relative to that in the rest of the country over the period. |
