The 1.1% jump in GDP in the second quarter is partly pay-back for below-par performance in the first quarter, reflecting the VAT rise – which may have caused firms to restrain production temporarily – and weather disruption. The average gain of 0.6%, or 2.5% at an annualised rate, over the last three quarters is a better guide to the economy's underlying path and accords with the message from business surveys and labour market data since late 2009. Non-oil growth has been slightly stronger, at 2.7% annualised.

A monthly GDP proxy derived from data on services and industrial output fell by 0.3% in April but surged 1.1% in May – see chart. The 1.1% quarterly growth estimate appears to incorporate an assumed 0.5% decline in June, for which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) currently has limited information. This indicates the possibility of an upward revision. The May level of GDP was 0.5% above the quarterly average.

Strong second-quarter growth should close off discussion of extending asset purchases at the August Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting and supports Andrew Sentance's argument that the current policy stance is increasingly misaligned with a strengthening economic recovery and ongoing inflation overshoot. The "MPC-ometer" model discussed in previous posts, indeed, suggests that interest rates would now be rising, if the Committee were responding to economic and financial data in the same way as in the past.

The US Conference Board index of leading indicators fell by a smaller-than-expected 0.2% in June and is still up by 2.6% over the last six months, suggesting a solid near-term economic outlook.

The bulk of the recent gain, however, is due to the component measuring the slope of the yield curve – the gap between the 10-year Treasury yield and the fed funds rate. This component has been contributing 0.3-0.4 percentage points to the monthly change in the index.

A positive yield curve slope is less likely to signal economic strength when short-term interest rates are unusually low. The US economy suffered a recession in 1937-38 when the yield curve was only slightly less steep than currently – see previous post.

A modified leading index excluding the yield curve rose by only 0.4% in the six months to June – see chart – and has fallen by 0.9% over the last three months.

The view here remains that a "double dip" will be avoided as long as real narrow money continues to expand – it rose solidly in June – and the 10-year yield remains above 2.5%. Economic data, however, may continue to disappoint over the next few months.

MPC inflation doves argue that slower core trends in other countries support the view that the "Phillips curve" is still working. According to the June minutes, "the recent downward trends in inflation, excluding energy and food, in the United States and euro area suggested that a substantial margin of spare capacity would cause inflation to fall back in the United Kingdom too, as the impact of temporary factors wore off."

This argument, however, assumes that the observed falls in US and eurozone inflation have been caused by spare capacity. A closer examination suggests otherwise.

In the US, the annual increase in consumer prices excluding food and energy has fallen from a peak of 2.5% in August 2008 to 0.9% by June. This mainly reflects a slowdown in the "shelter" component, which has a 42% weighting in the core index. Annual inflation excluding food, energy and shelter has fallen only from 2.7% to 2.1% over this period, remaining above its average in recent years – see first chart.

The shelter component is dominated by "owners' equivalent rent" – a theoretical sum paid by home-owners to themselves in return for accommodation. Its annual rate of change has fallen from 2.5% in August 2008 to -0.2% by June, a lagged reflection of housing market weakness. It is debatable whether imputed rent should be included in a cost of living index – it is omitted from UK and eurozone indices. In any event, the decline in US shelter inflation cannot be attributed to "spare capacity" in the sense of underutilised plant and machinery or labour.

Doves retort that housing weakness cannot explain the similar slowdown in eurozone core inflation (i.e. based on the consumer price index excluding unprocessed food and energy) from an annual 2.6% to 0.9% between August 2008 and June. This decline, however, owed much to a 17% rise in the euro's effective exchange rate in the three years to July 2008 – second chart. The 12% fall in the euro since last October may be starting to lift core inflation, which bottomed at 0.75% in April.

The "big picture" is that global core inflation has proved much stickier than predicted by Keynesian models based on the large decline in output during the "great recession".

Public sector borrowing was higher than expected in June, but recent figures remain consistent with an undershoot of the Budget forecast for 2010-11.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projects a fall in net borrowing, excluding the temporary effect of financial interventions, from £154.6 billion in 2009-10 to £149 billion this year. Attempting to adjust for seasonal factors, borrowing averaged £12.25 billion per month between April and June, or £147 billion annualised – see chart. The OBR forecast, therefore, implies no further improvement – even a small worsening – over the remainder of 2010-11.

This is unlikely because, first, the benefits of economic recovery should grow as the year progresses and, secondly, the coalition has announced spending cuts and tax rises worth £8.1 billion in 2010-11 that have yet to be reflected in the monthly numbers. Put differently, even assuming no impact from the recovery, these measures together with the recent run-rate imply borrowing of £139 billion this year (i.e. £147 billion minus £8 billion), £10 billion less than the OBR's forecast.

The forecasting approach in this journal places weight on the Friedmanite rule-of-thumb that changes in the real money supply lead demand and output by roughly six months. It is advisable to monitor the full range of money measures but narrow money, M1, has exhibited the most consistent relationship with the economic cycle historically.

The Friedmanite rule has worked well in recent years, albeit with a slightly longer lead than usual. The six-month rate of change of G7 real M1 turned negative in late 2007 ahead of the recession and bottomed in March 2008, 11 months before the six-month change in industrial output and nine months before that of the OECD G7 leading index, which is widely monitored by market participants. Real M1 expansion surged in late 2008 and early 2009, foreshadowing the strong recovery in G7 industrial activity over the last year – see first chart.

Monetary trends also signalled the current global industrial slowdown, with the six-month rise in G7 real M1 peaking as long ago as February 2009. The six-month increase in the OECD leading index reached a high eight months later in October 2009 with that of industrial output following in January 2010 – the same 11-month lag as at the cycle trough.

Importantly, however, the six-month change in real M1, while falling significantly, has remained positive in recent months, consistent with an economic slowdown rather than renewed contraction. It bottomed, moreover, in January 2010, picking up in May and, provisionally, June (the June estimate incorporates US and Japanese data only). Based on the lags at the prior two turning points, this suggests that the six-month change in the OECD leading index will bottom in September or October and that of industrial output in December.

Previous posts have explained that equities and other risk assets have, on average, performed better when real M1 has been growing more strongly than industrial output. The six-month change in real M1 crossed above that of the leading index in June, probably signalling a move above output expansion by late summer or early autumn. This could indicate an improving liquidity backdrop for markets later in 2010.

Monetary pessimists ignore M1 and emphasise recent contraction in G7 real broad money – second chart. The broad measure, however, failed to warn of the recession, continuing to grow strongly in late 2007 even as narrow money was weakening. The interpretation here is that the demand to hold broad money rose sharply as the financial crisis intensified but has been falling more recently, partly reflecting heavily-negative real deposit interest rates. Broad money, therefore, understated monetary tightness in late 2007 and is grossly overstating the degree of restriction now. Portfolio shifts are much less likely to have affected the demand for M1, which is more closely related to economic transactions.