Monthly GDP Estimates for Inter-War Britain

Abstract

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.