The two key factors underlying our forecast this quarter are the continued depreciation of the US$, which is about 4½ per cent weaker in effective terms than in October and 18 per cent below its recent peak in early 2002, and the emergence of what appears to be a sustainable recovery in Japan. Our projections for world growth this year incorporate significant upward revisions for the world's two largest economies, the US and Japan, while the outlook for the EU and Canada remains largely unchanged, although they also gain modest support from stronger demand in the US and Asia.

The production of this forecast is supported by the Institute's Corporate Members: Abbey plc, Bank of England, Barclays Bank plc, Ernst and Young LLP, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Marks and Spencer plc, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (Europe) Ltd, Morley Fund Management, The National Grid Company plc, Nomura Research Institute Europe Ltd, Rio Tinto plc, Standard Chartered Bank plc, Unilever plc and Watson Wyatt LLP.

During the second half of the 1990s the UK economy enjoyed a sustained period of strong and stable growth. Since then the slowdown in the world economy that accompanied the collapse in equity markets has served until recently to moderate growth both domestically and abroad. But, in comparison to other major economies, the UK has so far emerged relatively unscathed. This could be the result of good fortune, well directed stabilisation policies or reformed institutions. Part at least of the relatively good growth performance displayed by the UK economy comes from stronger domestic demand. It is of course difficult to disentangle strong demand growth from the impacts on income of improved supply performance. We attempt to isolate those elements that are most clearly demand side stimulants.

In this paper, we measure the indirect impact of FDI on the total factor productivity of domestic plants in a number of UK manufacturing industries, 1974–95, using a standard production-function-based approach. We use data from the UK ARD and information derived from UK input-output tables. Our results indicate that the competition and ‘absorption capacity’ effect at times outweighs potential benefits, leading to negative spillovers. We also find that inter-industry spillovers are generally more prevalent than intra-industry spillovers. We conclude that the nature of spillovers is such that measurement techniques traditionally adopted fail to explain adequately their complex and diverse nature.

This paper uses the IMF's macroeconomic model MULTIMOD to examine the implications of the zero interest rate floor (ZIF) for the design of monetary policy in Japan. Similar to findings in other studies, targeting rates of inflation lower than 2.0 per cent significantly increases the likelihood of the ZIF becoming binding. Systematic monetary policy strategies that respond strongly to stabilise output and inflation, or that incorporate some explicit price-level component, can help to mitigate the implications of the ZIF.

This paper examines the effects of changes in Euro Area interest rates using macroeconomic models. It examines the results of a harmonised monetary policy simulation at the Euro Area level using the National Institute of Economic and Social Research's Global Economic Model (NiGEM) and the European Central Bank's Area Wide Model (AWM). Comparison is also drawn with the aggregate results from Euro Area National Central Bank models as reported in van Els et al. (2001). Overall, the results across the different models are broadly consistent with what might be regarded as the stylised facts of the monetary transmission mechanism. That is to say that, following a policy tightening, there is an initial fall in output consisting of a more pronounced investment response and a less pronounced consumption response. This output fall is accompanied by protracted price dynamics.