Monthly GDP Estimates for Inter-War Britian

We derive monthly and quarterly series of UK GDP for the inter-war period from a set of monthly indicators that were constructed by The Economist at the time. The monthly information is complemented with data for quarterly industrial production, allowing us to employ mixed-frequency methods to produce monthly estimates of GDP and of industrial production. We proceed to illustrate how the new data compare with existing high frequency data and how they can be used to contribute to our understanding of the economic history of the UK in the inter-war period and to draw comparisons between recession profiles in the inter-war and the post-war period.

Keywords: economic history, national accounts, monthly GDP data, Great Depression

JEL Classification: N340, C820

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Mitchell, James and Solomou, Solomos and Weale, Martin R., Monthly GDP Estimates for Inter-War Britian (September 30, 2011). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 3602, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1939846 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1939846