RESURRECTING THE U.K. HISTORIC SECTOR NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

Abstract

The U.K. national accounts no longer provide a full set of sector income and expenditure data before 1987, a weakness that seriously impedes macroeconomic research. Using a strict accounting framework to combine the best quality official data taken from alternative sources, I show that a historic sector dataset can be resurrected, albeit at a high level of sector aggregation. Particular attention is paid to transfer incomes and associated inter‐sector flows. Household saving and corporate retentions data are also derived. Benefits of the historic dataset are described and implications drawn for research and data management.