18A108 - AGENTS' SUMMARIES OF UK BUSINESS CONDITIONS

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18A108 - AGENTS' SUMMARIES OF UK BUSINESS CONDITIONS

18A108

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Admin History: Whilst the Bank's Agencies had been compiling national summaries of UK business conditions for decades (see: 6A257 for national summaries dating from June 1974 to December 1999), they were never made available for public consumption. The first Bank of England Agent's national summary of business conditions that was made available to the public was published alongside the May 1996 edition of the Quarterly Bulletin. The following description was given in this first published summary:'The Bank of England has had a regional presence through its Branches, headed by the Agents, for over 150 years. Recently, the focus of the Agents' work has shifted away from managing banking and note issue business and has increasingly concentrated on gathering economic information. Through their widespread contacts with companies, both large and small, and other organisations covering all sectors of the economy, the Agents obtain a first-hand picture of economic conditions in their regions. In total, the Agents have direct contact with around 350-400 businesses and other organisations each month, drawn from a pool of some 4,000 contacts. The information derived from the Agents' reports is regarded by the Bank as an essential input to its interpretation of the state of the economy. In particular, the information may provide up-to-date insights into developments and trends which help in the interpretation of conflicting or unclear statistical evidence. The Agents are part of the Bank's Monetary Analysis function and their regular reports, supplemented by ad hoc reporting as appropriate, play a significant role in shaping the advice which the Governor gives to the Chancellor at their monthly meetings to consider monetary conditions and the appropriate level of interest rates. The Agents' reports also contribute to the analysis which appears in the Bank's quarterly Inflation Report, which is published with the Quarterly Bulletin.Since 1992, when the current system of inflation targeting was introduced, it has been the view of both the Governor and the Chancellor that the conduct of monetary policy is enhanced if it is carried out in an open framework in which the reasoning behind policy decisions is publicly disclosed. This approach is aimed at making monetary policy decisions more transparent and predictable, thereby enabling the economy as a whole to adjust more smoothly. It is within that spirit that the Bank now considers it appropriate to publish a quarterly summary of the Agents' reports'.The second, published national summary appeared in May 1997 and were published quarterly thereafter. The published summaries were initially called the National Summaries of Business Conditions, then the Summaries of UK Business Conditions, and later, the Agents' Summary of Business Conditions (ASBC). From October 2008 onwards, internal and external versions of the ASBCs were produced (one for internal, Bank staff consumption and one for public consumption). Each national summary was the synthesis of monthly summaries produced by the Agents and known as Monthly Economic Reports (MERs). At the beginning of 2017 the production of MERs was reduced to eight-a-year, and, at this point, they were renamed Agents' Economic Reports (AERs).[Source: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/1996/boe-agents-summary-of-business-conditions.pdf?la=en&hash=69EE086ECD4B4E5BC79A754FED5F4931206D54AE]

Keyword: Agent's National Summary

RefNo: 18A108

Date: Jun 1996 -

Related Material: 6A257 for the national summaries of UK business conditions from June 1974 onwards.26C2/1 holds the definitions for the Agents' scores.

Level: Series

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