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Chapter II. The Home Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Extract

Over the last year we have been arguing that economic agents, be they households, companies or trades unions, try extremely hard to maintain their patterns of economic behaviour in the face of adverse conditions whether in the form of oil price rises, a world recession or governmental deflationary policies. Our output forecasts have therefore been somewhat less pessimistic than many others during the last year and actual outcomes have shown that, if anything, even we were too pessimistic for the period up to the second quarter of 1980 (chart 1). However, attempts to postpone adjustment can only last for a limited period especially if the economic conditions continue to worsen as they have done. It now appears that the resistance is beginning to crack and, as was pointed out in our last Review, the pressures fall most heavily on the non-financial company sector; hence the impact is reflected in rapidly rising unemployment and a steep fall in manufacturing output.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

page 20 note (1) The series shown in Appendix table 6 is for UK, excluding school leavers, seasonally adjusted.

page 22 note (1) Financial Statement and Budget Report, 1980-81, HMSO, 26 March 1980.

page 26 note (1) Building Societies Association Bulletin, July 1980, table 14. Prices at mortgage completion.

page 30 note (1) Definitions of the competitiveness measures are given in the November 1979 Review, pp. 104-5.

page 30 note (2) There has been a number of studies of measures of competitiveness in recent years. Two of particular note are ‘Measures of competitiveness in international trade’, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, June 1978 pp. 181-95 and E. A. Doggett and J. C. Cresswell, ‘Aspects of United Kingdom trade competitiveness’, Economic Trends, February 1979, pp. 79-84.