Orders and output in UK construction statistics: new methodology and old problems

Abstract

The Office for National Statistics in the UK has developed and adopted a new method for collecting and publishing construction statistics. The analysis of the revised construction new orders series and the associated new UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) output price index for all new construction leads to three conclusions: (1) the new indices have corrected two significant methodological errors, namely the underestimation of the number of main contractors and the underestimation of inflation by BIS output price indices for new construction; (2) the new indices addressed a concern, the orders–output ‘credibility gap’, in the construction output forecasting literature; and (3) care should be taken when using the revised orders series and new output price index for historic research because a ‘credibility gap’ exists between the two back series prior to 1990.