Fiscal and Monetary Policy Behavior over the Business Cycle

In the late 2007, early 2008 the United States and the world was hit with the most serious economic downturn since The Great Depression in 1929. During this time the Federal Reserve played a huge role in assuring that it would not turn into the second Great Depression. In this paper, we will be discussing what the Federal Reserve did during this time, including a discussion of our nation’s three main economic goals which are GDP, employment, and inflation. My goal is to describe the historic monetary and fiscal policy efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government and Federal Reserve, including both the traditional and non-traditional measures to ease credit markets and stimulate the economy.

In the late 2007, early 2008 the United States and the world was hit with the most serious economic downturn since The Great Depression in 1929. During this time the Federal Reserve played a huge role in assuring that it would not turn into the second Great Depression. In this paper, we will be discussing what the Federal Reserve did during this time including a discussion of our nation’s three main economic goals which are GDP, employment, and inflation. My goal is to describe the historic monetary and fiscal policy efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government and Federal Reserve including both the traditional and non-traditional measures to ease credit markers and stimulate the economy.

When the Federal government has to find ways to regain any money lost they lean on the expansionary Fiscal policy and the monetary policy to regain money into the economy. Whether, a change in taxes or even government spending. Even to the three major tools of the expansionary monetary policy to focus on. In the first part of this paper, I will discuss the expansionary fiscal policy and how the Federal government was involved and the changes that needed to be made to taxes, government spending. The second part of this paper, I will discuss the monetary policy and the tools the Federal Reserve used when under this policy. The expansionary fiscal policy was out to kick start the economy, and the expansionary monetary policy was out to change interest rate, and influence money supply. When discussing these two policies you have to think about one aspect when will it ever stop? Will a policy always have to be part of the economy to help the government one way or another?

The 2008 Great Recession helped in restoring economic growth and lowered unemployment. Both fiscal and monetary policies are related ways use to increase the aggregate demand and aggregate supply. So, a shift in the aggregate demand curve to the right is expansionary fiscal policy meaning government spending has to exceed (2012). The G- component aggregate demand help to spend, allowing the C- component of aggregate demand to increase. On the other hand, the monetary policy promotes spending, investments, and lending increasing aggregate demand. During the downturn, the systems concentrate on growing demand total while the supply strategy looked for long-term growth in productivity and efficiency (Pettinger, 2012).

It widely recognized that the monetary policy within a country should be primarily concerned with the pursuit of price stability. However, it is still not clear how this objective can be achieved most effectively. This debate remains unsettled, but an increasing number of countries have adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy framework. (Dr E J van der Merwe, 2002) This topic of Inflation targeting is a subject which immediately conjures different perceptions from different people. Many feel that low inflation should be a main aim of monetary policy, while others (such as trade union activists) believe that a higher growth rate to stimulate jobs should be the main concern.

The Congressional Budget Office (2012) assesses short-term impact of fiscal policy by relying on the predicted impact of changes in monetary policy by the Federal Reserve and the products of Macroeconomic Advisors and HIS Global Insight (Reichling and Whalen, 2012). The models used by these organizations assume economic output depends on labor supply, technology, available capital, and demand for goods and services. The validity of this model depends largely on the assumption that economic cycles recur with minor changes only.

December 2007, a recession happened again in the United States; this lasted until June 2009. In between the years of 1948 to 2011, there have been 10 recessions total.(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012) The government used a policy called the Fiscal policy which was a starting point of the recovery after the most current recession in 2007. The fiscal policy includes government spending, taxation, and other factors that influence the economy. President Obama was trying to increase aggregate demand by using the Fiscal policy. Aggregate demand is a relationship between the price level and the output of goods as well as services.

How can monetary policy and fiscal policy greatly influence the US economy? Keynesian economics says, “A depressed economy is the result of inadequate spending .” According to Keynesian the government intervention can help a depressed economy through monetary policy and fiscal .The idea established by Keynes was that managing the economy is a government responsibility .

     With America in recovery from the attacks on our freedom and our economy, many wonder if we will return to phase one (expansion) and how long it will take to reach phase two (recession) again. The Keynesian Theorists of America believe that the government should actively pursue Monetary policies (enacted by the Federal Reserve Bank) and Fiscal policies (enacted by Congress) to reach adjustments to price, employment, and growth levels. In our full market economy, we must use these economic policies to control aggregate demand. When these policies are used to stimulate the economy during a recession, it is said that the government is pursuing expansionary economic policies.

Theories about how the economy works and what will happen in the economy where there is monetary policy or fiscal policy intervention are appropriate in assisting policy-makers understand the possible implications of decisions they make or are under consideration. However, they are rarely complete models and often outcomes cannot be predicted. Reintroduction of a theory suggests that new evidence in support of the theory has been reported.

Monetary policy, ‘The government’s policy relating to the money supply, bank interest rates, and borrowing’ (Collin: 130), is another tool available to the government to control inflation. Figure 4 shows, that by increasing the interest rate (r), from r1 to r2, the supply of money (ms) is reduced from Q1

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, the UK government has been implementing various policies to combat the recession and stimulate economic growth. This essay will look at how effective the fiscal and monetary policies used since the crisis are in achieving the four-macro economic objectives. In addition, I will provide my input on the best way the UK government can carry out these policies.

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.

| Advocates of active monetary and fiscal policy view the economy as inherently unstable and believe that policy can manage aggregate demand, and thereby, production and employment, to offset the inherent instability. When aggregate demand is inadequate to ensure full employment, policymakers should boost government spending, cut taxes, and expand money supply. However, when aggregate demand is excessive, risking higher inflation, policymakers should cut government spending, raise taxes, and reduce the money supply. Such policy actions put

Discuss the role of government policy in reducing unemployment and inflation. In your discussion make use of the diagrammatic representation of the macroeconomy developed in lectures in Term 2