ABSTRACT
One of the main issues to be addressed concerned the choice between specific reporting dates or average monthly figures for interest rates. For the period up to December 1921, an end-month figure seemed most appropriate because it corresponds exactly to the data we have for other monetary series. For the inter-war years, monthly average data are presented for the monetary aggregates and their components, but monthly averages for interest rates are not as appropriate for calculating interest rate differentials as rates that existed on a particular day. End-month interest rates do bear a constant relationship to our monthly average data. These are weighted to the mid-month, and the difference in collection time between the aggregates and the interest rates is not too significant. During the Second World War, data were generally collected as end-month figures to correspond to those for the London clearing banks, and naturally interest rates are also presented as end-month data.
