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The Economic Situation: Chapter I. The Home Economy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2020
Abstract
The first section of this chapter provides a general appraisal of the state of the economy before the Budget, and of the likely course of national output for the rest of the year. The second section discusses the consequences for two crucial sectors-first, for employment and unemployment, and secondly, for the balance of payments. The third section gives a detailed description of the main items of national expenditure, and a justification of the assumptions made about their future course.
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- Copyright © 1963 National Institute of Economic and Social Research
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page 5 note (1) The new forecasts in table 1 of the actual level of national expenditure items at the end of 1963 are, if anything, slightly lower than the forecasts implied (allowing for the additional Budget stimulus) in the last Review (National Institute Economic Review, no. 23, page 18). The percentage change from the last quarter of last year is now much bigger, simply because the expenditure figures for the last quarter of last year are abnormally low.
page 7 note (1) Statistical Appendix table 16.
page 7 note (2) The NIESR estimates of recorded stock-building of imported materials (Statistical Appendix table 17) suggest quite an appreciable build-up of stocks during 1962. These are essentially estimates of imported stocks held by the first distributors. But the total stock figures for the year, particu larly manufacturers' stocks of materials and fuel, give a rather different picture. It is very possible, therefore, that unrecorded stocks of imported materials fell last year. But in the six months ending March, the relative movement of manufacturing output and of the volume of imports suggests that stocks of imported materials must have risen.
page 7 note (3) ‘Moreover, in so far as there is a stocking-up movement related to expansion, in effect the building up of working capital, then I think that it is perfectly reasonable and sensible to finance such a movement out of our reserves or out of our borrowing facilities in the International Monetary Fund and elsewhere.
This is surely what these various facilities exist for. It is wrong to use reserves or borrowing facilities to boost up an internal position which is unsound because costs, prices and incomes have got out of hand. But it is equally unsound to refuse to use reserves and borrowing facilities for the purposes for which they exist, namely, to deal with temporary situations and prevent temporary difficulties obstructing the proper long-term development of the economy’. Weekly Hansard, No. 587, col. 471, 3rd April 1963.
page 9 note (1) Statistical Appendix table 13.
page 9 note (2) There was a similar, though smaller, drop in the fourth quarter of 1961, but not in earlier years.
page 10 note (1) There is a January figure (Statistical Appendix table 5) which shows a rise over December. But it is unwise to base any conclusion on one month's figure (which may well be revised). It is perhaps significant that the two biggest surges of home orders for machine tools during the 1950s followed soon after the introduction of investment allowances; between 6 and 9 months after their introduction in April 1954; and 9 to 12 months after their re-introduction in 1959. Last November, investment allowances were raised from 20 to 30 per cent.
page 11 note (1) This is probably more true of hire purchase debt than of personal and professional bank advances. Some people may choose to borrow from the banks, to finance expenditure on which they had already decided, as an alternative to selling other financial assets.
page 13 note (1) The most important recent settlements have been for local authorities' manual workers (March, about 3 1/2 per cent), coal miners (April, 3 1/2-5 per cent), London transport and municipal bus workers (April, about 4 per cent), and cotton workers (June, 2-2 1/2 per cent). Except for the cotton workers all these had increases in April or May last year.
page 13 note (2) This excludes those receiving automatic cost-of-living adjustments.
page 14 note (1) The consumer prices index is not affected in the same way by sharp changes in vegetable prices, and it is likely to rise more smoothly through the year.
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