The onset of the financial crisis in 2008 brought an end to the ‘Great Stability' period, making prospects for UK and global economic growth appear not just weaker, but more uncertain. This elevated uncertainty is likely to have adversely affected spending decisions and contributed to the...

This article discusses the measurement of capacity pressures within businesses a key influence on the outlook for inflation. The degree of pressure on capacity relative to normal is likely to affect businesses' costs and prices. A variety of different methods are presented, each with their own...

It is likely to be several decades before data on government assets, off-balance sheet and contingent liabilities are consistently available across a wide range of countries. In the absence of data, GDP is a readily available scaling factor, but official sector agencies such as the IMF and...

Inflation is a key economic indicator that affects all economic agents. But the mechanisms by which price data are captured and aggregated are less uniform than might be expected, and there are a number of practical issues that can affect measured inflation rates. Focusing on UK data, this...

Data on cultural differences between countries based on the definitions developed by Geert Hofstede are now available for more than 80 countries. Data on six structural economic indicators published by the World Bank - ease of doing business, enforcement of contracts, control of corruption,...