Evaluating National economic performance

Perfomance can be judged against the economy's past and current record in:

• Reducing and then maintaining a low level of unemployment
• Achieving and then sustaining a satisfactory rate of economic growth, uniterrupted by excessive inequality in the distrubution of income and wealth
• Controlling inflation and avoiding destabilising swings in the inflation rate
• Improving the competitiveness in international markets of the country's industries

• Can be used for comparing the performance of the UK with that of other countries

Lead indicators

• provide information about the future state of the economy
• surveys of consumer and businesws confidence and investment intentions indicate the existence of feel-good or feel-bad factors and provide information about the likely state of AD a few months ahead
• Statistic for house-building and holiday bookings provide information about future spendings, While data on commodity and input prices can signal future changes in retail price inflation

Lag indicators

• Provide information about the extent to which past economic peformance had led to an outcome that meets the different criteria listed for macro performance
• Data on the level of GDP and current and recent employment - provide information about current and recent economic performance