In: Economics
The economy is estimated to be growing at .02% annually, what policy will keep the economy out of a recession? Use the three economic variables: Government spending, Taxes, and Money supply in your reasoning. Your goal variables are: Real Gross Domestic Product, Prices, Interest rates, wages, and employment. Describe your proposed policy changes, how they might be implemented, and what effect they are expected to have on various sectors of the economy.
Recession is when real GDP growth is negative for six months. To avoid recession there should be enough aggregate demand in an economy. Aggregate demand should keep shifting right and it should be complemented by shift in aggregate supply as well so that economy potential goes up without inflationary impact on an economy.
This will be helped by both demand and supply side policies.
Demand side policies:
Fiscal policy is a policy controlled by the government and it has two tools: taxes and govt. spending. During recessions govt. decreases taxes and increases govt. spending which is called expansionary fiscal policy. During inflation govt. increases taxes and decreases govt. spending which is called contractionary fiscal policy. Monetary policy is a policy determined by central bank and has two tools; interest rates and money supply. When there is inflation and central bank wants to reduce over consumption in an economy then it increases interest rates and decreases money supply. This is called as contractionary monetary policy. When there is recession and central bank wants to boost economic activity then it decreases interest rates and increases money supply. This is called as expansionary monetary policy.
Expansionary policies create more aggregate demand, decrease unemployment. It can be inflationary if all resources are fully used and there is no spare capacity.
Supply side policies: This policy focuses on aggregate supply. It has two types- market based and interventionist based. market based policy focuses on incentives for businesses, labor market reforms and encouraging competition. Interventionist based policy focuses on human and physical capital.
If all these polices are used effectively along with focus on innovation then country may avoid recessionary impacts.