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1991 February The base rate is cut twice by 1/2 per cent, reducing it to 13 per cent. The public expenditure White Paper is replaced by the publication of a [...]

The UK financial market has been severely affected by the financial matter crisis. The crisis has exposed weaknesses in the supervisory framework as well as that for crisis management and [...]

The government's health reform programme since 2000 has covered many aspects of the organisation of health care and was accompanied by a sizeable increase in spending on healthcare. Many of [...]

While the immediate imperative is to tackle the financial crisis and to steer the economy through the current downturn, there are also a number of longer-term challenges that need to [...]

As in most other OECD countries, the fiscal situation in the UK has deteriorated sharply. While to date the discretionary fiscal stimulus has been relatively modest, after around the turn [...]

The United Kingdom, like many OECD economies, is experiencing a severe recession as a consequence of a series of global shocks and any recovery in 2010 is likely to be [...]

The economy is in a severe recession The world economy was hit by a succession of shocks during 2007 and 2008. The United Kingdom, like most OECD economies, is experiencing [...]

The United Kingdom has embraced globalisation and been rewarded with a strong growth performance Living up to the challenges posed by globalisation is the over-arching theme of this Economic Survey. [...]

Seven per cent of the 25-54-year-old men are now inactive outside the labour market, many more than three decades ago. Solid growth since the late 1990s has brought down unemployment [...]

Lack of skills in large parts of the workforce is a key factor holding back the capacity to absorb innovations and adapt work processes to take advantage of new technologies. [...]

A wide range of indicators suggests that UK innovation performance has been mediocre in international comparison. An improvement is often viewed as one important means of closing the productivity gap [...]

On current government plans there will have been a rise in the public expenditure to GDP ratio by 5 1/2 percentage points in the eight years to 2007/08, with much [...]

The female employment rate has risen from 56% in 1971 to 70% in 2004. Among mothers with two or more children under 15 years, 24% work full-time and 40% part-time. [...]

Macroeconomic performance has been amongst the most resilient in the OECD over the last decade, but policy-makers currently face a slowdown in growth, in part caused by an overdue cooling [...]

Pronounced cycles in house prices have been a major cause of macroeconomic instability in the past. Following up on a chapter on housing in the previous Survey this chapter begins [...]

Unlike the situation in many OECD countries, future fiscal costs from public pension provision are not projected to rise significantly as the population ages. Instead concerns focus on the declining [...]

A strong macroeconomic performance to build upon but some important challenges to address Over the last decade, macroeconomic performance has been impressive: GDP growth has been robust and cyclical fluctuations [...]

Introduction Over the last couple of years the housing market has been a major consideration in the setting of monetary policy as demonstrated by numerous references in the minutes of [...]

Introduction Since the mid-1990s, GDP growth, inflation and unemployment have been remarkably stable in the United Kingdom (Figure 1.1). Nowhere else in the OECD has economic activity remained so consistently [...]

The previous OECD Survey of the United Kingdom (OECD, 1996a) evaluated progress made in implementing the OECD's Jobs Strategy. It concluded that much progress had been made in improving the [...]

Corporate governance deals with the issues which arise from the separation of ownership and control in modern joint stock companies. This separation can lead to a divergence of interests between [...]

While improving slowly since the mid-1980s, the medium-term growth performance of the UK economy only matched the OECD countries' average, and GDP per capita has remained the lowest among the [...]

GDP growth has averaged 2 1/4 per cent per annum over the past 10 years, very close to the average since the middle of the last century. Indeed, variation in [...]

Introduction Competition is in many ways the driving force behind economic progress. Competitive pressures push producers towards greater efficiency and productivity and the search for new or improved products. Increases [...]

1994 February The Bank of England reduces base rates by 0.25 percentage points to 5.25 per cent. April Domestic fuel becomes subject to value-added tax at 8 per cent. PSBR [...]

UK economic performance remained good in 1995 following the previous year's strong results. Real GDP expanded by 2.6 per cent, unemployment fell further, the GDP deflator rose by just 2.4 [...]

Since the early 1980s, the United Kingdom has pursued structural reform on a broad front aimed at creating a more flexible and competitive economy. The previous chapter focused on reform [...]

Introduction There is a long-standing perception that the United Kingdom has suffered from a history of inadequate education and training. In particular, critics felt that the education system was excessively [...]

The economic recovery in the United Kingdom which started in early 1992 gathered pace in the first half of 1994. Macroeconomic performance in 1994 was impressive on a broad front. [...]

Introduction Roughly three years have passed since a number of important reform measures were introduced to the UK National Health Service (NHS). These reforms sought to increase the flexibility and [...]

A year and a half ago, when the previous OECD Economic Survey of the United Kingdom was undertaken, macroeconomic prospects appeared highly uncertain. Following the suspension of sterling's participation in [...]

Since the early 1980s, the United Kingdom has implemented far-reaching structural reforms aimed at increasing the supply-side flexibility of the economy. Central to this programme has been a strategy of [...]

Introduction Emissions of major pollutants into the air and water have fallen significantly in the United Kingdom over the past two decades. The policy that has produced these results has [...]

V. Conclusions Following three and a half years of excessively rapid nominal income growth and the emergence of excess demand, the U.K. economy slipped into sharp recession towards mid-1990. Output [...]

IV. Progress in structural reform The impressive programme of structural reforms phased-in during the 1980s was surveyed in depth in the 1987/88 OECD Survey of the United Kingdom and in [...]

II. A new policy regime This Chapter assesses the new policy regime with sterling's entry into the ERM. Against the background of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS), it briefly discusses [...]

The United Kingdom international cost competitiveness The United Kingdom joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) on 8 October 1990, at a central parity of 2.95 Deutschemark to a pound [...]

Calendar of main economic events 1990 January The Bank of England further liberalises the market for commercial borrowing. Parliament passes the restructuring of local government finance in England and Wales [...]

Since coming into power, the Government has identified specific policy areas where reform was needed in order for the United Kingdom to close its productivity gap vis-a-vis the other large [...]

Public spending on health care accounts for a bit less than 6 per cent of GDP and 14 per cent of general government spending, and is on a rising trend. [...]

Notwithstanding its emphasis on medium-run targets, the fiscal framework in place until 1997 suffered from a number of deficiencies, notably with respect to transparency, stability and accountability. As noted in [...]

The United Kingdom has built up over seven years of experience with inflation targeting and three years have elapsed since the Bank of England was granted a larger measure of [...]

The previous OECD Survey, published in June 1998, highlighted the inflationary pressures that had then surfaced. Since the autumn of 1999, following a remarkably benign aggregate slowdown, the main challenge [...]

In a November 1999 speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer spelled out the Government's ambitious objective of 'making Britain by 2002 the most favourable environment in which to conduct e-commerce'. [...]