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Economic Policy and the Great Depression in a Small Open Economy
Author(s) -
PAYNE JONATHAN,
UREN LAWRENCE
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of money, credit and banking
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.763
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1538-4616
pISSN - 0022-2879
DOI - 10.1111/jmcb.12109
Subject(s) - economics , exchange rate , great depression , small open economy , fiscal policy , depression (economics) , open economy , government (linguistics) , keynesian economics , new keynesian economics , fixed exchange rates , monetary economics , macroeconomics , monetary policy , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , history
We use a standard New Keynesian model of a small open economy, extended to include a government sector, to investigate the Great Depression in Australia. A calibrated model with a fixed exchange rate regime, similar to the gold standard, does well in replicating the dynamics of output during the interwar period. We then ask to what extent shocks to the economy would have been moderated by adopting modern‐day policies. We find that if policymakers had adopted a flexible exchange rate with a Taylor rule policy that output fluctuations during the Great Depression would have been moderated by up to 25%. Changes in government fiscal policy would also have moderated output fluctuations, but by a slightly smaller amount. Overall, we find that improved policy could have reduced output fluctuations by almost 50%.