Shortlived supply shocks to potential growth

Byron Botha, Franz Ruch and Max Steinbach

No 8605, Working Papers from South African Reserve Bank

Abstract: Potential growth, or the non-inflationary rate of growth in output, is generally viewed as a slow-moving and smooth process. This implies that all the sudden changes in real gross domestic product (GDP), regardless of origin, are reflected in the output gap. There are, however, short-lived supply shocks. Recent examples include the platinum-sector strike of 2014 and the drought of 2015/16 that are more accurately identified as temporary shifts in potential growth. We update the South African Reserve Bank's current, finance-neutral, estimates of potential growth to account for these short-lived supply shocks. We compare the supply shocks, that should shift potential growth rather than the output gap generated from the model, to a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. The resulting output gap more accurately reflects a measure of demand pressures in the economy at any given point in time. The output gap is not as wide as previously estimated after 2015.

Date: 2018-06-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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