Developments so far this year have been closely in line with the forecasts we published in February and in May. As expected, output fell in the first half of the year and the prospect is still for a slight recovery by the end of the year. As expected, inflation has been falling rapidly, and the prospect is still for a rate under 5 per cent by the end of the year. The current account deficit on the balance of payments is much reduced, whilst the public sector again has a borrowing requirement. With the continued slowdown in activity, unemployment has risen sharply, and it is still expected to continue rising in 1992.

In the course of the last 2 years economic performance in the major 7 economies has become less synchronised. In 1988 GNP grew by more than 3.5 per cent in all seven economies, with growth rates either at or close to cyclical highs. However for 1991 we expect negative GNP growth for Canada and the United Kingdom, negligible growth in the United States, growth of around 1.5 per cent in France and Italy, and of over 3 per cent in Germany and Japan. Table 1 shows that GNP growth in the major 7 economies is expected to slow to 1.2 per cent in 1991. Chart 1 highlights the different responses among the major 4 economies.

A number of economists, including the author, were critical of the central rate that was chosen when sterling entered the ERM in October 1990, on the ground that it overvalued the pound. Specifically, the central rate against the other ERM currencies implied a higher value for the pound than that yielded by calculations of ‘fundamental equilibrium exchange rates’ (FEERs).

The present paper aims to explain the concept of the FEER, introduced by the author in Williamson (1983), and argues that it provides the right criterion for assessing whether a currency is correctly valued. It also sketches the evidence for believing the pound's ERM central rate to be above the FEER. A final section considers the policy implications of the finding that sterling is overvalued.

The concept of the Fundamental Equilibrium Exchange Rate (FEER) was first used in Williamson (1983) to calculate the misalignments of the exchange rates for major currencies, and as a basis for his target zone proposal. In this note we use the same concept in a different context, that of the relations amongst the European economies which are members of the ERM, a system which is evolving towards monetary union. The first section reviews the concept of the FEER and its use in policy analysis. The second section relates this to the analysis of real exchange rates and external balance within a potential monetary union. The third section includes new estimates of FEERs using the most recent version of our world model, and considers the possible future evolution of FEERs in the context of EMU, including some tests of the sensitivity of these estimates to parametric change.

This article describes the current versions of six leading macroeconometric models, focusing on their treatment of several current policy issues, namely the role of the housing market, the implications of ERM membership and, more generally, the relative effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy. Differences in the modelling of the housing sector and the exchange rate are important in explaining differences in overall model properties which are revealed in standard policy simulations. Monetary policy is more potent than in previous versions of the models, which has important implications for the conduct of macroeconomic policy under ERM membership.

The boom of the later 1980s was not due solely to financial institutions greater freedom to lend to the private sector. This was activated by over-optimism about the economy's performance. These two influences combined to cause the ‘over-heating’ for which the current recession is seen as the cure. Although the removal of restraints on financial institutions contributed, it was a once-for-all process which is now virtually complete. The case for returning to a regulated financial system is weaker than the case for living with an unregulated one, despite the higher debt ratios and other conditions which have resulted from the transition to it.