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mpc: 25 The Committee considered a number of potential explanations for the weakness of estimated UK business investment. First, the official data was particularly prone to revision and might be revised higher. Second, multinational firms might have decided to allocate more of their investment spending to overseas projects, reflecting the lower wage costs in many emerging market economies. Third, some of the investment undertaken by service sector firms (such as in-house software design) might not have been picked up in the official statistics though it was difficult to know whether or not this consideration had become more marked in the recent past. Fourth, there was some anecdotal evidence to suggest that firms may have chosen to cut back on investment spending in order to improve the financial position of their in-house pension funds. Finally, higher and more volatile energy prices might have increased the uncertainties about the likely returns of investment projects.