preview

Keynesian Vs Real Business Cycle School

Decent Essays

Economists have always had differing views on whether government stimulus packages help or hurt the economy when it’s in a recession. This stems from the same schools of economic theory as mentioned in the response to the first question above – Keynesian vs Real Business Cycle school. On one end you have the Keynesian philosophy, where government fiscal intervention during a recession is deemed necessary. It’s intention is to keep consumer spending afloat by way of public spending or altering the tax policy to help improve the flow of capital. On the other end you have the Real Business Cycle school (RBC) sharing beliefs that increased spending, borrowing, and inflation are the reasons that we’ve gotten into a recession. The RBC economists consider that the way to improve the economy it to get rid of the debt as well as malinvestments that lead to wasted capital and economic losses. In Christina Romer’s “Fiscal Policy in the Crisis: Lessons and Policy Implications”, one of her first lessons brought to the table was how fiscal policy action does indeed have a quantifiably substantial effect on output and employment. The evidence presented was that which David Romer and she took presidential speeches and reports that identified tax changes for purposes of reducing deficit – not countercyclical reasons. The study revealed that after these exogenous fiscal policy events took place, changes to output and unemployment followed. Meaning, if there were expansionary or contractionary

Get Access