Fiscal policy is the government’s attempt to influence the economy by setting and changing taxes, government spending, and the government’s deficit and debt (Matthews et al 2003). Contractionary fiscal policy is, therefore, a policy where a decrease in government’s spending, an increase in taxes plus a decrease in transfer payments are applied to mitigate the inflationary issues that occur during a business cycle expansion. Thus, it restrains the economy, decreases the inflation rate and closes the inflation gap. This Essay will investigate the extent of the contribution of this policy to a decline in economic activity. Consequently, it will analyse the effects on economic activity under the Keynesian theory, the “classical” theory, and the Mundell-Fleming model. Furthermore, commentary on the results of an empirical study under a fixed exchange rate regime of the Obstfeld and Rogoff model will be provided and contrasted to other theories and models.
Contractionary fiscal policy, which is a reduction in the budget deficit, works through government spending and taxes. However, it is easier to separate them into three tools, namely, government purchases, taxes and transfer payments to see their effect on economic activity in the short run, medium run and long run. Government purchases are government expenditures, which are undertaken by government agencies, on final goods and services or gross domestic product in an economy. These include small items such as paper clips, office furniture, and teachers’ salaries to motorway construction. Hence, contractionary fiscal policy will involve a cut in funds appropriated to the various agents, thereby reducing aggregate production, income and inflation rates. Consequently, this policy is ...
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Works Cited
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Giavazzi, F. and Pagano, M. (1990) Can Severe Fiscal Contractions Be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries. NBER Macroeconomics Annual, 5 p.75-110.
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Lee, Y., & Gordon, R. H. (2005). Tax structure and economic growth. Journal of Public Economics, 89(5-6), 1027-1043. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.07.002
The Classical economists believe that these are “temporary” changes that will correct themselves in the long run. They feel that an economy will always tend towards operating at its potential output (as given by the long-run aggregate supply curve. Nothing needs to be done by the government because normal market forces will serve to self-correct these issues. On the other hand, Keynesian economics argue that the gap between the lower and the potential levels of output is due to a change in aggregate demand. They argue that this gap can exist for a long time and that the gap can be pushed to close faster if the government enacts fiscal and monetary policies. There are differences in how each policy works to close the recessionary gap caused by a drop in aggregate
Kerdrain, C. and Lap`Egue, V. 2011. Restrictive fiscal policies in Europe: what are the likely effects?.
Fiscal Policy is described as changing the taxing and spending of the federal government for purposes of expanding or contracting the level of aggregate demand; these are designed to increase short-run economic growth. In a recession, an expansionary fiscal policy involves lowering taxes and increasing government spending. By cutting taxes, increasing government spending programs, and increasing transfer payments, more money is in the economy, more income, and more spending. This can be done through the federal budget process; however, the problem with fiscal policy is lag time. This process can take so long (as long as a year or more) that Discretionary Fiscal Policy is very rarely used in the federal governmen...
Everyone has their own political leaning and that leaning comes from one’s opinion about the Government. Peoples’ opinions are formed by what the parties say they will and will not do, the amounts they want spend and what they want to save. In macroeconomic terms, what the government spends is known as fiscal policy. Fiscal policy is the use of taxation and government spending for the purposes of stimulating or slowing down growth in an economy. Fiscal policy can be used for expansionary reasons, which is aimed at growing the economy and increasing employment, or contractionary which is intended to slow the growth of an economy. Expansionary fiscal policy features increased government spending and decreases in the tax rates as where contractionary policy focuses on lowering government spending and increasing tax rates. It must be understood that fiscal policy is meant to help the economy, although some negative results may arise.
Fiscal policy consists of two basic variations called expansionary and contractionary fiscal policy. Each is recommended to correct different problems created by business-cycle instability.
Fiscal policy uses changes in taxes and government spending to affect overall spending and stabilize the economy. When lowering taxes the people have more to spend then the government decreases spending and the economy slows down therefore the economy stabilizes. The objective of fiscal policy is the governments’ typical use fiscal policy to promote strong and sustainable growth and reduce poverty. During periods of recession congress has the option to decrease taxes to give households more disposable income so they can buy more products. Therefore, lowering tax rates increases GDP.
The other method is Deflationary fiscal policy this involves decreasing AD therefore the government will cut their spending and or increase taxes. Higher taxes will reduce consumer spending. This will lead to an improvement in the government’s budget deficit.
Government spending has become a hot topic of debate after economic recession of 2008 but it’s still a controversy among the economists. Some economists favor role of government in the economy for balance of economic shocks, whereas others consider that government generate shocks and instability in economy. Keynes was first who introduced government involvement in economy after the recession of 1930. Theories of Keynes regarding the government spending have again taken attention in the financial crisis of 2008 in America, which has spread all over the world through trade openness. This financial crisis has decreased the economic growth and employment rate in whole world especially in the developed countries. Thus some economist suggests that
In this paper I will be discussing the effects of the changes in fiscal policy in the simulation, I will discuss the effects of changes in fiscal policy using the aggregate supply and aggregate demand framework, I will list four key points from the reading assignments that were emphasized in this simulation, I will apply what I learned from the simulation to my workplace, and I will discuss my growing further results from the assessment.
This essay seeks to explain what are monetary and fiscal policy and their roles and contribution to the economy. This includes the role of the government in regulating the economical performance of a country. It also explains the different features and tools of monetary and fiscal policy and their performance when applied to the third world countries with a huge informal sector.
The reduction of government role in the economy will affect fiscal policy by decreasing deficit spending a...
During the time of economic crisis starting around 2010 different rationalities have been taken to try and continue economic growth while maintaining a stable government system that is helping and not hurting. When examining government spending and how it affects the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) there seems to be disagreements on if it was helping or damaging the prospective growth that could be made. By using the Multiplier Effect the government can estimate how to adjust their government spending and how it effects the spending of the consumer, investments and spending of country’s exports.
According to Maynard, John (1930), various measured may be taken by government in order to improve the state of the economy and probably move the economy from a recession or even speed this process. Various players can play a role in improving the economic though as Keynesian theory explains the government plays a great role in this compared to other players like the private sector. The government can therefore use various measures through its budgeting policies, fiscal policies and monetary policies by the Central Bank. It’s on this basis that the UK coalition government has proposed slashing of its budget to reduce the overall spending in the economy.
These two policies use to try to shorten recessions. Fiscal policy has its initial impact in the goods markets, then monetary policy has its initial impact mainly in the assets markets, which both effect on both level of output and interest rates. (R. Dornbusch et al., 2008)