Guide to Statistical Sources

Over the past two decades a large amount of statistical data has been assembled on various aspects of the British economy over the past hundred years. In particular, there has been a steady stream of new information on income, capital formation, industrial production, employment and consumers’ expenditure. These statistics should be used with caution, however. There are still significant gaps in the basic series and often two or more series are needed to span our period. Many of them are compiled from tentative estimates and extrapolations from benchmark years. Thus continuous time series compiled on the same basis do not exist for all components of the economy. This is particularly the case with industrial productivity, the capital stock and exports. For example, two series are available on productivity, one covering the period to 1914 based on the Hoffmann production index, and the other for the years 1920–38 which is derived from Lomax’s new index of production. Since the coverage and weighting of these are different it is impossible to link them together satisfactorily. The further one goes back in time the less reliable the data become, though it should be noted that the estimates for the war and early post-war years (1914-21) are also unreliable. For the inter-war years estimates are more accurate since it was in this period that official statistical reporting improved both in quantity and quality.