Inventories: a cross-country comparison of behaviour and methodology

Barry Williams
Additional contact information
Barry Williams: Office for National Statistics

Economic & Labour Market Review, 2008, vol. 2, issue 8, 25-31

Abstract: Highlights relationships within component inventories data,between GDP and inventories and the relative importance of individual sectors' holdingsThere are a number of contrasting economic theories regarding companies’ motivations for holding inventories. One theory suggests firms use inventories to smooth production levels over time in response to demand; another suggests firms have an optimal range of inventory levels which they will maintain by varying production levels. The purpose of this article is not to solve this debate but instead to highlight the relationships within component inventories data, the relationships between gross domestic product and inventories and the relative importance of individual sectors’ holdings within the series as a whole. Subsequently, a comparison of official data and external survey data within the UK will be discussed. In addition, the article aims to highlight the difficulty in measuring inventory data and discusses issues surrounding methodology. Economic & Labour Market Review (2008) 2, 25–31; doi:10.1057/elmr.2008.120

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/elmr/journal/v2/n8/pdf/elmr2008120a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/elmr/journal/v2/n8/full/elmr2008120a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:ecolmr:v:2:y:2008:i:8:p:25-31

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41318

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic & Labour Market Review from Palgrave Macmillan, Office for National Statistics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().