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Much of the change in individual earnings has occurred at the top. This paper provides new evidence about the earnings distribution in the UK. The evidence is new in that it provides detail about what has happened within the top 10%, covering groups such as the top 1% and the top 0.5%. The aim is to set the recent rise in top earnings in historical perspective, and to make international comparisons. The evidence is new in that it covers the whole of the postwar period, allowing a contrast to be drawn with the 'golden age' of the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the probability density forecasts reflected in the Bank of England's real GDP growth fan charts. Evaluation is carried out using tests that allow for data dependence and using two GDP growth estimates. Results suggest there are problems with the shorter horizon forecasts, but conclusions about the performance of longer-term forecasts depend to some extent on the GDP estimates used in the assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much speculation about the meaning of the residual factor in economic growth. Few economists would defend it as a perfect measure of technical change, preferring to hedge their bets by describing it as part of the growth of output not explained by the growth in the labour force and capital accumulation. Others have been more forceful in their opposition claiming that the residual merely shows the degree of our inability to measure accurately, and the omission of relevant variables, and have demonstrated their views. The view of the present author is that, while the residual when properly measured must theoretically be zero, a detailed examination of the residual as normally measured is useful in providing information on the causes of economic growth and possibly thereby producing policy implications for raising the growth rate. Therefore, this paper seeks to establish how much of the residual can be explained by incorrect measurement and specification, and to see what implications for policy, if any, can be drawn. The analysis is carried out for Great Britain. Manufacturing over the period 1956-65 and provides estimates of the residual at successive stages of purity.

The article focuses on the public sector's function as it affects the overall economy in Great Britain. Public sector represents a sizeable portion of most industrial economies and 38.5 percent of its GDP in 2004-2005. According to the author, malfunctioning public sector affects the overall performance of the economy both through direct contribution of the goods and services produced by the nation and its direct impact on other sectors through the provision of a well educated workforce.

The article discusses the potential decrease of the economy in the Euro Area. It highlights the shrinking of the economy in Euro Area by 1.6 percent on quarterly basis. It noted the decrease of economic activity in the first quarter of 2009. It emphasizes that the forecast on the decline of economy came from both public and private sectors. The article also presents various charts and diagrams depicting the economic activity in the Euro Area including the contribution of stockbuilding to the growth of gross domestic product (GPD), inflation expectation and the prospects for the European Union.

The article forecasts the economic condition in Great Britain for 2009. The economy of the country is expected to worsen due to the weak performance of its domestic banking system. The problems on the access to credit for households and non-financial companies are projected to end. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth will decline by 5.8%, as well as the distribution output by 2.4%. Economic growth is estimated to deteriorate as a result of the worsening of the availability of credit within the country.

An overview is provided of the issues raised in the recent literature on the use of reaI-time data in the context of nowcasting and forecasting UK macroeconomic events. The ideas are illustrated through two specific applications using UK real-time data available over 1961-2006 and providing probability forecasts that could have been produced in real time over the past twenty years. In the first, we consider the reliability of first-release data on the components of UK aggregate demand by looking at forecasts of the probabiIity of substantial data revisions. In the second, we consider the estimation of the output gap, illustrating the uncertainty surrounding its measurement through density forecasts and focusing on its interpretation in terms of inflationary pressure through an event probability forecast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the total factor productivity growth in Great Britain after 1870. The confusion over which industries witnessed entrepreneurial shortcomings remained until the use by new economic historians of geometric and arithmetic total factor productivity indexes to test directly Aldcroft's hypothesis that Britain's rate of technical progress was inferior to that of America or Germany. Productivity indexes measure output per unit input. Unlike partial productivity indexes, principally the output-labor ratio, total factor productivity indexes measure the rate of growth of output not accounted for by the growth of all factor inputs. After subtracting the rate of growth of weighted factor inputs from the rate of growth of output, what is left unexplained is labelled technical change or productivity. In this case, the index is a residual and, more properly, has been called a measure of our ignorance. By comparing total factor productivity growth in Britain after 1870 with best practice American efficiency growth, both lagging British productivity and the entrepreneurial failure thesis were subjected to an unambiguous test.

The article focuses on typologies and evidence that serve as a guide to economic growth in Europe during the nineteenth century. There has also been increased reliance on comparative methods by historians seeking to achieve a cross-fertilization of explanatory ideas. For both purposes it is desirable, for the first purpose essential, that any historical generalizations called into aid should be not only true of several particular instances but also should be very widely applicable. It could be harmfully misleading if what looked to be proclamations of universal relationships turned out to be no more than accounts of one or two highly individual cases, disguised in the language of generality. All the chief schemes expounding alleged universalities in the history of economic growth have received plenty of criticism, both appreciative and hostile, but it is doubtful whether they have often been starkly confronted by the question whether the evidence they use is comprehensive enough to provide a secure foundation of genuine history for edifices as vast as they have grown to be. They have been challenged on grounds of unclarity or inappropriateness in their basic concepts, or because they have been inaccurate on some specific points, or because some particular case may be more convincingly interpreted by postulating a different chain of causation.

The article measures the effect of public finance during the period 1793-1815 on the rate and direction of Great Britain's economic development. It explores the country's involvement in war during the period. One aspect of the war which has intermittently attracted economists" attention from the time of the "bullionist" controversy is the effect of the expedients that were adopted in the field of public finance. The article describes the sources of data which economic historian can use to be able to fairly measure the effect of the country's finance on the rate and direction of economic growth. An analysis on the economic indicators during the period is presented.

The object of this article is to demonstrate that economic analysis used in conjunction with the data employed by researcher R.B. Sheridan yields the conclusion that the possession of the British West Indies actually had the effect of retarding the growth of Great Britain. Sheridan contends that the West Indies in general, and Jamaica in particular, yielded an economic surplus, which contributed in no small way to the growth of the metropolitan economy. In the course of his argument, Sheridan constructs an estimate of the wealth of Jamaica during the 1770's and expands it to include all the British West India sugar colonies. Sheridan's argument contains two types of error that, when corrected, vitiate his conclusion. One type of error, an error of measurement, occurs both in his attempt to measure the wealth of Jamaica and in his acceptance of an estimate of income generated by this wealth. The more serious mistake, however, is an analytical error. Sheridan implicitly considers the extensive growth of the sugar colonies as a measure of their contribution to the economic growth of the mother country.

The article examines the economic conditions facing the government in Great Britain. An analysis on the influence of budgetary and investment factors on the British economic crisis in 1947 is presented. The author explores the questions on the role of the restoration of the free markets in the creation of internal and external equilibrium. The success of the government in reducing the international deficit within the limits of the Marshall Aid and the worsening of the international situation made this study of post-war British economic development more convenient for the author.

While it is frequently asserted that British industry has earned an inadequate return on investment, there has been little agreement among economists as to what exactly this rate has been in recent years. This note provides striking new evidence that the profitability of British industry is currently much lower than anyone had previously supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]