ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the changes in national income and explains changes in three other important measures of overall economic activity, on all of which new light has been thrown in recent years. Insurance valuations can give information about the cost of buildings and machinery, necessary in order to estimate capital investment in the economy as a whole. The amount of investment which takes place in an economy is usually expressed as a percentage of national income, in which form it is known as the investment ratio. In agriculture, for instance, it is likely that output per head of the total population fell from the later eighteenth century onwards. While the statistical material presented in the chapter coincides with much of what is known about the economy from other sources, it is important for the reader to realise that the material is based on recent revisions which mark an important change from previous interpretations of the aggregate economy in this period.
