Chapter III. The World Economy
Abstract
Chapter III. The World Economy SAGE Publications, Inc.1980DOI: 10.1177/002795018009300104 GENERAL TRENDS Output in OECD countries The growth of output in OECD member countries has been abruptly checked. Helped perhaps by relatively favourable weather, industrial production appears to have increased by 1-12 per cent in the first quarter. In the second, however, there seems to have been quite a significant fall in Western Europe as well as in the United States, and a marked slowing down of growth in Japan (table 1). We no longer expect the aggregate rise for the year in member countries to be any more than 2 per cent (implying a drop of similar magnitude from the first quarter's rate), and the Table 1. Economic growth in OECD countries Source: OECD, Main Economic Indicators, national sources, and NIESR estimates. (a) The UK forecasts for both industrial production and GDP are based on chapter II's unchanged policies assumptions. Industrial production here excludes construction. For GDP the past figures are expenditure-based estimates. The forecasts are on the 'output' basis as in chapter II. (b) Includes the same countries as the total in table 11 for GDP, but for industrial production excludes Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand and Turkey.