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Latest nowcasts of the Scottish economy

With 29th of March now behind us, but with the uncertainty remaining rather than resolved, we have produced a new nowcast for the Scottish economy for Q1 2019.

Since our last nowcast in early March we have received official estimates of GDP growth in 2018 Q4. These place growth in Q4 at +0.3%, slightly ahead of UK growth in Q4 of 0.2%.

This is in line with our last nowcast for Q4 2018 which put growth at 0.29%.

Services growth again outpaced the overall economy with growth of 0.5% in Q4 of 2018, but production sector growth was down -0.9% for the second quarter in a row.

These latest official data put overall growth in Scotland in 2018 at 1.4%, still significantly below long-run trend growth.

Turning to growth in Q1 2019, our latest estimate puts growth at 0.31%, or at an annualised rate 1.26%.

Scottish Business Monitor Results – Q1 2019

The Scottish Business Monitor Results for Q1 2019 are summarised in the PDF below.

You can download the PDF here: https://www.sbs.strath.ac.uk/economics/fraser/20190325/Business-Monitor-Q1-2019.pdf

Nowcasts of the Scottish economy

Grant Allan & Stuart McIntyre
http://www.nowcastingscotland.com
Fraser of Allander Institute, University of Strathclyde

Economic forecasting and nowcasting is notoriously difficult – even more so in a period of heightened economic uncertainty.

With the 29th March looming large on the calendar, economic uncertainty at present is extraordinarily high.

With this in mind, we report the latest results from our nowcasting model for Scotland.

Our nowcast for GVA growth in 2018 Q4 is 0.29% which, at an annual rate, is 1.16%
Our nowcast for GVA growth in 2019 Q1 is 0.31% which, at an annual rate, is 1.24%

The final countdown: insights from Scottish businesses as the UK heads towards Brexit

With only 3 weeks to go until the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, Scottish Businesses still don’t have any certainty over the terms of the exit, and crucially, if there will be any sort of transition to future arrangements.

Ahead of a series of votes in the House of Commons next week, we’ve been asking businesses in Scotland about Brexit and their preparations for it. We asked firms from across the country, and from a variety of different sectors.

The focus was not on whether businesses believe Brexit to be good or bad, but instead, how Brexit is affecting different areas of their day-to-day activities such as investment and recruitment. Also, we were interested to find out to what extent firms have embarked upon any plans in preparation for Brexit: specifically whether they are prepared for a no deal Brexit.

This blog summarises the results of our survey.

Regional growth in 2018 – what happened?

This blog presents research outputs from an Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence project.

ESCoE provides the Office for National Statistics with research that addresses the challenges of measuring the modern economy, as recommended by Professor Sir Charles Bean in his Independent Review of UK Economics Statistics.

This research was undertaken by Strathclyde researchers Gary Koop @gary_koop, Stuart McIntyre @stuartgmcintyre and Aubrey Poon, and Warwick Business School’s James Mitchell

The blog below was first posted here: https://www.escoe.ac.uk/regional-growth-in-2018-what-happened/ Continue reading