In the argot of Wall Street, broad economic growth projections are called top-down forecasts because they incorporate a wide range of macroeconomic factors, like manufacturing output and the unemployment rate.
B. W. E. Alford shows that Britain's growth rate, manufacturing output, and GDP per capita clearly declined in relative terms in the period from 1870 to 1913, in a way which diverged from stronger comparable nations like Germany and the United States.
A surprisingly vigorous economic recovery is proceeding — U.K. manufacturing output expanded at its fastest rate in fifteen years last month — and Brown's Labour government has already announced significant tax increases and spending cuts.
Chris Williamson, Markit's chief economist, said: "The marked service sector downturn follows news from sister PMI surveys showing construction activity suffering its steepest decline since mid-2009 and manufacturing output contracting at the fastest rate since late 2012.
The weakness included a 0.7percentt decrease in manufacturing output, which pushed the operating rate at the nation's factories down to 67.4percentt of capacity last month, the lowest level in records that go back to 1948.
The growth rates for manufacturing output, retail sales and inventory levels have all fallen recently, according to government data released this week.
Japan's jobless rate also dropped, to 4.1%, while manufacturing output rose by its fastest pace in a year in April.
The survey suggests manufacturing output is growing at a quarterly rate of around 1%-1.51%-1.5%
The two series grew at fairly similar rates between 1970 and 1993, but since then manufacturing output per worker has taken off at a fast rate, while overall output per worker has remained essentially constant.
A survey of purchasing managers published this week, for example, suggested that manufacturing output rose in December at its fastest rate for over two years.That recovery should be sustained this year and next.
Although manufacturing output saw a slight slowdown in the rate of growth last month, Markit said output had now increased for 16 months in a row.
