UK plc

• Department of Trade and Industry surveys of capital expenditure and R&D investment. DTI F&I Unit, London, 2000, 2001 and onwards. Very comprehensive material. Those of a slightly paranoid nature might suspect the hand of government. For example, an overall decline in national R&D spend expressed by a minister as a 70% increase in the number of UK companies rated as R&D intensive.
• Office for National Statistics. Productivity of UK companies . Economic Trends. Stationary Office, 2002 and onwards.
• Corporate Governance and the technological advantage of Nations. Andrew Tylecote and Francesca Visintin - to be published 2007. Andrew Tylecote has studied the sources of innovation in a number of countries and concluded that the UK is particularly disadvantaged by its investment industry. Good research.
• Tax Misery Index. Invest in Britain Bureau, 1999. A. Frazer. Study concludes that, despite the whingeing of the CBI and some politicians, Britain is not burdened with impossible taxes and foreign companies find it a good place to do business. Pity about the British ones - still they need some kind of excuses.
• Index of Economic Freedom. 2006. Another 'must-read' for those inclined to believe the propaganda spread by those who want us to believe the UK is an awful place in which to do business. Annual survey of more than 100 countries by US right-wing think tank places Britain number 5 in the world, well ahead of the US, with a tax burden exactly the same as that country.