It’s official. The UK is in a double-dip recession. The data are noisy and revision-prone, and the definition of “recession” – two consecutive quarters of contraction – is arbitrary and unhelpful. Forward-looking business confidence surveys, rather than backward-looking output data, suggest an improvement is under way. Still, this ugly landmark looks meaningful. The most erratic figures, for construction, came in much better than conventional wisdom had expected. The big reason why UK gross domestic product recorded a marginal contraction in the first quarter, and not a marginal expansion, was disappointing growth in business services and finance.
官方數據顯示，英國陷入了雙底衰退。這是個嘈雜的數據，而且很可能會被修正。關于衰退的定義——連續兩個季度出現收縮——也有些武斷，沒有什么參考意義。不同于“后顧性”的產出數據，具有前瞻性的商業信心指數表明形勢正在改善。不過，這個難看的標志性數據看起來仍然意義重大。最不穩定的建筑業數據明顯好于普遍的預期。英國國內生產總值(GDP)在一季度出現輕微收縮、而非輕微擴張的主要原因是，商業服務和融資方面的增長令人失望。