IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uwa/wpaper/12-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Australia and the GFC: Saved by Astute Fiscal Policy?

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolaas Groenewold

    (Business School, University of Western Australia)

Abstract

Both before and after the federal election campaign in 2010, Australians were frequently told that they were spared the worst effects of the Global Financial Crisis because of the government’s timely and decisive fiscal stimulus. However, there are at least two other possibilities: monetary policy and foreign demand. This paper assesses the relative importance of these possibilities in driving output in the past few years. It does this within the framework of a structural vector-autoregressive model based on recent literature measuring the effects of fiscal and/or monetary policy on output. The results suggest that the government’s claims are considerably exaggerated.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolaas Groenewold, 2012. "Australia and the GFC: Saved by Astute Fiscal Policy?," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 12-28, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwa:wpaper:12-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.business.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/2254050/12-28-Australia-and-the-GFC,-Saved-by-Astute-Fiscal-Policy.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Aizenman Joshua & Pasricha Gurnain K., 2011. "The Net Fiscal Expenditure Stimulus in the US, 2008-9: Less than What You Might Think, and Less than the Fiscal Stimuli of Most OECD Countries," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-6, June.
    3. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Identifying Government Spending Shocks: It's all in the Timing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 1-50.
    4. Nakashima, Kiyotaka, 2006. "The Bank of Japan's operating procedures and the identification of monetary policy shocks: A reexamination using the Bernanke-Mihov approach," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 406-433, September.
    5. Fragetta, Matteo & Kirsanova, Tatiana, 2010. "Strategic monetary and fiscal policy interactions: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 855-879, October.
    6. Dungey, Mardi & Fry, Renée, 2009. "The identification of fiscal and monetary policy in a structural VAR," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1147-1160, November.
    7. Giavazzi, Francesco & Favero, Carlo A., 2007. "Debt and the Effects of Fiscal Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 6092, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Anthony J. Makin, 2010. "Did Fiscal Stimulus Counter Recession? Evidence from the National Accounts," Discussion Papers in Economics economics:201008, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    9. Cochrane, John H., 1998. "What do the VARs mean? Measuring the output effects of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 277-300, April.
    10. Muscatelli, V. Anton & Tirelli, Patrizio & Trecroci, Carmine, 2004. "Fiscal and monetary policy interactions: Empirical evidence and optimal policy using a structural New-Keynesian model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 257-280, June.
    11. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 2010. "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24, pages 35-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Bertrand Candelon & Joan Muysken & Robert Vermeulen, 2010. "Fiscal policy and monetary integration in Europe: an update," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 323-349, April.
    13. Creina Day, 2011. "China's Fiscal Stimulus and the Recession Australia Never Had: Is a Growth Slowdown Now Inevitable?," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 23-34.
    14. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
    15. Kasa, Ken & Popper, Helen, 1997. "Monetary Policy in Japan: A Structural VAR Analysis," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 275-295, September.
    16. Hess Chung & Eric Leeper, 2007. "What Has Financed Government Debt?," CAEPR Working Papers 2007-015, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    17. Andrew Mountford & Harald Uhlig, 2009. "What are the effects of fiscal policy shocks?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 960-992.
    18. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    19. Anton Muscatelli & Patrizio Tirelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2001. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interactions over the Cycle: Some Empirical Evidence," Working Papers 2002_13, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Oct 2002.
    20. Robert Kollmann & Werner Roeger & Jan in'tVeld, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Financial Crisis: Standard Policy vs. Bank Rescue Measure," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-008, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    21. E.J. Weber, 1993. "The Role of Money During the Recession in Australia in 1990-92," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 93-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    22. Toda, Hiro Y. & Yamamoto, Taku, 1995. "Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1-2), pages 225-250.
    23. Gunter Coenen & Roland Straub & Mathias Trabandt, 2012. "Fiscal Policy and the Great Recession in the Euro Area," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 71-76, May.
    24. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    25. Robert Kollmann & Werner Roeger & Jan in't Veld, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Financial Crisis: Standard Policy versus Bank Rescue Measures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 77-81, May.
    26. Olivier Coibion, 2012. "Are the Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks Big or Small?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-32, April.
    27. Anthony J. Makin, 2010. "Did Australia's Fiscal Stimulus Counter Recession?: Evidence from the National Accounts," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 5-16.
    28. Roel Beetsma & Massimo Giuliodori, 2010. "Discretionary Fiscal Policy: Review and Estimates for the EU," CESifo Working Paper Series 2948, CESifo.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grace Taylor & Rod Tyers, 2017. "Secular Stagnation: Determinants and Consequences for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 615-650, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Groenewold, Nicolaas, 2018. "Australia saved from the financial crisis by policy or by exports?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 118-135.
    2. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    3. Shafik Hebous, 2011. "The Effects Of Discretionary Fiscal Policy On Macroeconomic Aggregates: A Reappraisal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 674-707, September.
    4. Sebastian Gechert & Ansgar Rannenberg, 2014. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Regime-Dependent? A Meta Regression Analysis," IMK Working Paper 139-2014, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    5. Hebous, Shafik & Zimmermann, Tom, 2013. "Estimating the effects of coordinated fiscal actions in the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 110-121.
    6. Dragan Tevdovski & Goran Petrevski & Jane Bogoev, 2019. "The effects of macroeconomic policies under fixed exchange rates: A Bayesian VAR analysis," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 2138-2160, January.
    7. El-Shagi, Makram & Schweinitz, Gregor von, 2021. "Fiscal policy and fiscal fragility: Empirical evidence from the OECD," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    8. van der Wielen, Wouter, 2020. "The macroeconomic effects of tax changes: Evidence using real-time data for the European Union," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 302-321.
    9. Eddie Gerba & Klemens Hauzenberger, 2013. "Estimating US Fiscal and Monetary Interactions in a Time Varying VAR," Studies in Economics 1303, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    10. Andrew Mountford & Harald Uhlig, 2009. "What are the effects of fiscal policy shocks?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 960-992.
    11. Riera-Crichton, Daniel & Vegh, Carlos A. & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2016. "Tax multipliers: Pitfalls in measurement and identification," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 30-48.
    12. Pablo Hernández de Cos & Enrique Moral-Benito, 2016. "Fiscal multipliers in turbulent times: the case of Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1589-1625, June.
    13. Piotr Krajewski, 2017. "Regionalne zróżnicowanie oddziaływania wydatków rządowych na zatrudnienie – wnioski z analizy SVAR," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 48(1), pages 73-96.
    14. Jacopo Cimadomo & Sebastian Hauptmeier & Sergio Sola, 2011. "Identifying the Effects of Government Spending Shocks with and without Expected Reversal: an Approach Based on U.S. Real-Time Data," IHEID Working Papers 12-2011, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    15. Moneta, Alessio & Pallante, Gianluca, 2022. "Identification of Structural VAR Models via Independent Component Analysis: A Performance Evaluation Study," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    16. Virkola, Tuomo, 2014. "Exchange Rate Regime, Fiscal Foresight and the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy," ETLA Reports 20, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    17. Berger, Johannes & Graf, Nikolaus & Strohner, Ludwig & Schuh, Ulrich, 2014. "Auswirkungen von ausgaben- und einnahmenseitigen Konsolidierungen," Research Papers 2, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    18. James Cloyne & Nicholas Dimsdale & Natacha Postel-Vinay, 2018. "Taxes and Growth: New Narrative Evidence from Interwar Britain," NBER Working Papers 24659, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Huidrom, Raju & Kose, M. Ayhan & Lim, Jamus J. & Ohnsorge, Franziska L., 2020. "Why do fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal Positions?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 109-125.
    20. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2020. "Fiscal policy shocks and stock prices in the United States," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uwa:wpaper:12-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sam Tang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuwaau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.