The rebasing of the constant price national accounts to 1975 prices has been too recent to allow the re-estimation of our econometric model. Thus, with the exception of output, imports and exports (where we used 1975 prices to reweight the forecasts for oil and for all other goods taken together), the constant price forecasts presented here were constructed in terms of 1970 prices and subsequently linked to the new, 1975-based, data. This method can take account of the effect of rebasing on the relative weights of different categories of demand (up to our normal level of disaggregation) and thus on their contribution to total growth, but not of changes in the behaviour of the individual components because of the effects of rebasing within them. Our preliminary examination of the new data suggests that the latter effects may be large. It will thus be inappropriate to compare the present forecasts in detail with CSO data on the new base for the future as these appear. We believe that the forecasts provide the best overall picture of likely developments in the economy that can be made at present, but the caveat at the head of the tables applies with especial force on this occasion.

In making any projection, it is necessary to rely to a greater or lesser extent on the continuation of past patterns of behaviour. This may be through the use of econometric relationships or by the extrapolation of past trends of various kinds. The latter are often of critical importance in medium-term projections. Yet in a number of areas, there is growing evidence that patterns of development may have been fundamentally altered by the world and domestic recession and inflation of the years after 1973, and by the adoption of a flexible exchange rate regime.

Our view of the world economy has changed very little since August, or indeed since May. In terms both of successive forecasts and of predicted changes between successive years it is very much ‘the mixture as before’ even now that we have taken a first cautious look at the prospects for 1980. We still expect total output in the member countries of OECD to increase at a steady 3 1/2 per cent a year—too slowly, that is to say, to make any significant impact on unemployment—with any decline in the rate of inflation largely concentrated in some of the smaller countries where it has been particularly high. The annual growth of world trade still seems likely to remain within a range of 4–6 per cent. As before, however, we expect a continuing improvement in the current balance of payments of the developed and the centrally planned economies at the expense both of the oil producers and of the other developing countries.

This article examines changes in the pattern of the United Kingdom's visible trade with the original members of the European Economic Community and with Ireland, Denmark and the EFTA countries since her entry to the EEC in January 1973. It is concluded that UK-EEC trade has grown faster than might have been expected in the absence of entry, with little or no loss of non-agricultural trade in the other markets.

In 1965, the National Institute published ‘The British Economy in 1975’, by W. Beckerman and associates. This article summarises the results of a post-mortem on the book which was carried out at the Institute, together with a general discussion of approaches to medium-term projections

This article surveys the changes in recent years in the energy plans/forecasts of seventeen West European countries and in the prospects for European energy supplies. Economic growth since the 1975 recession has been slower than foreseen at the time of our similar survey two years ago; expectations concerning growth to 1985 are now also lower, resulting in energy requirements which are below those forecast earlier. The previous ambitious nuclear plans have in many cases been considerably reduces but higher future use of natural gas is planned. Europe's dependence on imported energy may be reducedfrom 64% in 1973 to just over 50% in 1980 and 1985 but seems likely to increase fairly rapidly again later on unless new domestic energy sources are found by then.