The Scottish economy [March 1993]

Our previous forecast of a small fall in the seasonally adjusted output index for Scottish production industries (Divisions 1 to 4 of the 1980 SIC) for the third quarter last year was not borne out by the actual outcome. This is mainly due to a large under-reporting of the index for the second quarter last year in the previous official data release. It is now clear that the prolonged recession, and particularly the substantial fall in output in the second quarter contributed significantly to the deterioration of business confidence as reported in the previous Scottish Chambers' business surveys (which should also affect the early official recording of the second quarter's output). This under-reporting leads our model to predict a further fall, although small, in the following quarter. However, the actual outcome of industrial output, total volume of sales and new orders in the third quarter turned out to be not as bad as we had been expecting (see also the following business survey section). Nevertheless, as data reveal in this paper, we are expecting a large fall in production for 1992 as a whole. There will be a further marked reduction in Scottish industrial output