It now seems increasingly likely that Britain will become a full member of the EMS before the next general election, possibly within the next twelve months. This is the assumption on which our forecasts are based this time. If it is true, it requires some fundamental changes to be made in the way in which economic policy is conducted.

The probability has increased that the UK will become a full member of the EMS before the next general election. The issue is by no means settled, but full membership now seems the right assumption to make for the forecast. The precise timing is difficult to foresee: on the one hand the present economic situation in this country makes an immediate move difficult, on the other hand the Government might be loath to make the move in the run-up to the election. Fortunately the choice of the exact date is not very material to the forecast. We have assumed the fourth quarter of the year is the date of entry. A more important question concerns the terms on which the UK joins: whether sterling joins at the market exchange rate of the day and the width of the band within which it can fluctuate.

The most important factor affecting our view of long-term prospects is the potential effect of developments in Eastern Europe. Since our last forecast, which was completed three months ago on 9th November 1989 the political map of Europe has changed. The Czechs, Rumanians and Bulgarians appear to have joined the Poles and the Hungarians in the drive for democracy and more open markets. The collapse of the East German regime, and the gathering pace of the drive for unification with the FDR has been even more remarkable. Almost any possible outcome will change the prospects for growth and economic developments in the whole of the non-Communist world. We would argue that these effects will not just be confined to Continental Europe.

In the past year we have attempted to incorporate forward-looking exchange rates into our econometric model, GEM. This work is still at an experimental stage, and hence will not be immediately available to model-users, but we feel we have made sufficient progress to present some of the results.

The introduction of forward-looking exchange rates is consistent with modern economic theories of exchange-rate determination. These view the exchange rate as an asset price, which is valued according to the expected returns from holding domestic and foreign assets. This gives rise to the short-run arbitrage condition, that the interest-rate differential between equivalent assets in different currencies should equal the expected depreciation of the exchange rate between those currencies. The expected depreciation is determined by a longer-term view of the currencies' worth, which can be related to the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate (FEER), which would achieve a balance between the current account and long-term capital account flows. Previous work at the Institute has expanded on some of these issues. Davies (1988) and Gurney (1988) look at some the issues raised by forward-looking exchange rates. Barrell, Gurney, Pesaran and Wren-Lewis (1988) look at alternative forward-looking models and Barrell and Wren-Lewis (1989) investigate FEERs based on the trade equations used in GEM.

Most discussion of the balance of payments and its implications for exchange-rate prospects and economic policy falls into two distinct categories. Some authors focus on the current account alone while others argue that in a world of liberalised capital markets information from the volume of trade flows will simply be swamped by flows of highly mobile international capital. In this note we argue that both these viewpoints are too extreme; in aggregate both the current and capital accounts will matter.

This is the fourth article from members of the CLARE Group to appear in the Review. Future articles will normally appear about twice a year. The Review is pleased to give hospitality to the deliberations of the CLARE Group but is not necessarily in agreement with the views expressed. Members of the CLARE Group are M.J. Artis, A.J.C. Britton, W.A. Brown, C.H. Feinstein, C.A.E. Goodhart, D.A. Hay, J.A. Kay, R.C.O. Matthews, M.H. Miller, P.M. Oppenheimer, M.V. Posner, W.B. Reddaway, J.R. Sargent, M.F-G. Scott, Z.A. Silberston, J.H.B. Tew, J.S. Vickers, S. Wadhwani.

The industrial relations legislation of the 1980s has been widely credited with having made a major contribution to Britain's economic performance. This study evaluates its actual impact. The costs to trade unions of strike action have increased, but the legislation has had some perverse effects, not least in encouraging unions to tighten up their own organisation. The economic consequences predicted by the policy makers are investigated by means of a number of econometric studies. They suggest that the expected employment and wage effects did not occur. They also failed to provide improvements in labour productivity. The study offers an alternative explanation of these findings.

‘And coming home, did go on board Sir W. Petty's Experiment—which is a brave roomy vessel—and I hope may do well. So went on shore to a Dutch house to drink some Rum, and there light upon some Dutchmen, with whom we had a good discourse touching Stoveing and making of cables. But to see how despicably they speak of us for our using so many hands more to do anything then they do, they closing a cable with 20 that we use 60 men upon’ (Samuel Pepys' diary for 13 February 1665)

This article compares the output per person-hour in 16 branches constituting the total manufacturing sector of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The comparatively poor productivity performance of British industry, as documented in previous studies comparing Britain with Germany and the USA, is confirmed in this new comparison with a much smaller economy in the 1980s. The article examines differences in the industrial composition in the manufacturing sectors of the two countries. Part of the productivity gap is accounted for by the stronger concentration of Dutch manufacturing in capital-intensive industries and in the production of semimanufactured goods. However, a bigger slice of the gap must be attributed to factors such as differences in the pace of introducing new technologies in some of the branches, the quality of the labour force and the utilisation of the capital stock. The article also explores the relation between the average size of manufacturing units and the degree of vertical integration.