You Really Never Had It So Good, Or Why Britain’s Post-War National Accounts Could Lead You Astray

Ten years ago, Britain’s main statistics agency revised the figures describing the history of the nation’s capital investment with results that, before 1997 and for many decades after the second world war, lack a coherent rationale and look wrong. The impact is still embedded in today’s official national accounts. The effects of the revision can be seen, for example, in an implausible uplift to Britain’s investment and growth record in the 1950s, the shifted scale and timing of the Barber Boom and Bust in the first half of the 1970s and in the improbable erasure of the post-war, thirty-year decline in company profit share. A deep investigation of the official figures is attempted and estimates made, but the task is hampered by incomplete documentation. It is regrettable that the Office for National Statistics decided some time ago not to correct the suspect capital investment figures. Those wishing to draw lessons from Britain’s economic past are advised not to rely on the ‘historic’ national accounts.