TIME-SERIES PROPERTIES AND FORECASTS OF CRUDE STEEL CONSUMPTION IN THE UK

This paper makes use of simple graphical techniques, a seasonal unit r oot test and a structural time-series model to obtain information on t he time series properties of UK crude steel consumption. It shows that steel consumption has, after the removal of some quite substantial ou tliers, a fairly constant seasonal pattern, and a well-defined but sto chastic business cycle. The long-run movement in steel consumption als o appears to be stochastic in nature. These characteristics were used to identify a structural time-series model and the ex-post forecasts o btained from it performed reasonably well. Finally, this paper present s some ex-ante quarterly forecasts for crude steel consumption to the year 1999.