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The Cost of Business Cycles and the Benefits of Stabilization: A Survey

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Gadi Barlevy

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Abstract

This article reviews the literature on the cost of U.S. post-War business cycle fluctuations. I argue that recent work has established this cost is considerably larger than initial work found. However, despite the large cost of macroeconomic volatility, it is not obvious that policymakers should have pursued a more aggressive stabilization policy than they did. Still, the fact that volatility is so costly suggests stable growth is a desirable goal that ought to be maintained to the extent possible, just as policymakers are currently required to do under the Balanced Growth and Full Employment Act of 1978. This survey was prepared for the Economic Perspectives, a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10926.

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Date of creation: Nov 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10926

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization
D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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  4. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & Lopez-Salido, Jose David, 2002. "Markups, Gaps and the Welfare Costs of Business Fluctuations," CEPR Discussion Papers 3212, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. repec:fth:harver:1418 is not listed on IDEAS
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Patrick Francois & Huw Lloyd-Ellis, 2006. "Growth, Cycles and Welfare: A Schumpeterian Perspective," Working Papers 1090, Queen's University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2007. "Endogenous volatility, endogenous growth, and large welfare gains from stabilization policies," Working Papers 2006-032, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  3. Arato, Hiroki, 2008. "Optimal operational monetary policy rules in an endogenous growth model: a calibrated analysis," MPRA Paper 8547, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. António Afonso & Luca Agnello & Davide Furceri, 2008. "Fiscal Policy Responiveness, Persistence and Discretion," Working Papers 2008/50, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Kevin X. D. Huang & Zheng Liu & Qi Zhu, 2006. "Temptation and self-control: some evidence and applications," Staff Report 367, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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