[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v169y2024ics001429212400151x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The welfare costs of business cycles unveiled: Measuring the extent of stabilization policies

Author

Listed:
  • Barros, Fernando
  • Gomes, Fábio Augusto R.
  • Luduvice, André Victor D.
Abstract
How can we measure the welfare benefit of ongoing stabilization policies? We develop a methodology to calculate the welfare cost of business cycles taking into account that observed consumption is partially smoothed. We propose a decomposition that disentangles consumption into a mix of laissez-faire and riskless components, decoupled by a parameter that captures the span of stabilization power. We estimate this parameter profiting from two distinct variance regimes measured in the historical consumption data and an identification strategy for the mapping between the span for each of these periods. In our preferred specification, we find that the welfare cost of total fluctuations is 11 percent of lifetime consumption, of which 82 percent is smoothed by the status quo policies, yielding a residual 1.8 percent of consumption to be tackled by policymakers.

Suggested Citation

  • Barros, Fernando & Gomes, Fábio Augusto R. & Luduvice, André Victor D., 2024. "The welfare costs of business cycles unveiled: Measuring the extent of stabilization policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s001429212400151x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429212400151X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104822?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1994. "Evaluating risky consumption paths: The role of intertemporal substitutability," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1471-1486, August.
    2. Fernando Barros Jr & Francisco L Lima Filho & Diego M Silva, 2017. "The Welfare Cost of Business Cycles for Heterogeneous Consumers: A State-Space Decomposition," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1928-1941.
    3. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    4. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2004. "Using Asset Prices to Measure the Cost of Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1223-1256, December.
    5. Storesletten, Kjetil & Telmer, Chris I. & Yaron, Amir, 2001. "The welfare cost of business cycles revisited: Finite lives and cyclical variation in idiosyncratic risk," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1311-1339.
    6. Olivier Blanchard, 2000. "What Do We Know about Macroeconomics that Fisher and Wicksell Did Not?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1375-1409.
    7. Rong Hai & Dirk Krueger & Andrew Postlewaite, 2020. "On the welfare cost of consumption fluctuations in the presence of memorable goods," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1177-1214, November.
    8. Robert J. Barro & Jose F. Ursua, 2008. "Macroeconomic Crises since 1870," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 255-350.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jensen, Henrik & Ravn, Søren Hove & Santoro, Emiliano, 2019. "Kinks and Gains from Credit Cycles," CEPR Discussion Papers 13795, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Gadi Barlevy, 2004. "The Cost of Business Cycles Under Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 964-990, September.
    3. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2003. "Macroeconomic Priorities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Gadi Barlevy, 2004. "The Cost of Business Cycles and the Benefits of Stabilization: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ricardo Reis, 2009. "The Time-Series Properties of Aggregate Consumption: Implications for the Costs of Fluctuations," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 722-753, June.
    6. Gadi Barlevy, 2005. "The cost of business cycles and the benefits of stabilization," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 29(Q I), pages 32-49.
    7. Jang-Ok Cho & Thomas Cooley & Hyung Seok Kim, 2015. "Business Cycle Uncertainty and Economic Welfare," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 185-200, April.
    8. repec:pri:wwseco:dp233 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Aurland-Bredesen, Kine Josefine, 2021. "The welfare costs of uncertainty: Cross-country evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Ensar Yılmaz, 2014. "Welfare Costs of Business Cycles in Turkey," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 195-211, May.
    11. Greg Hannsgen, 2007. "Are the Costs of the Business Cycle 'Trivially Small'?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_492, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    13. Issler, Joao Victor & de Mello Franco-Neto, Afonso Arinos & de Carvalho Guillen, Osmani Teixeira, 2008. "The welfare cost of macroeconomic uncertainty in the post-war period," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 167-175, February.
    14. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Robert Barro & José Ursúa, 2013. "Crises and Recoveries in an Empirical Model of Consumption Disasters," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 35-74, July.
    15. Robert J. Barro, 2009. "Rare Disasters, Asset Prices, and Welfare Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 243-264, March.
    16. Robert J. Barro, 2015. "Environmental Protection, Rare Disasters and Discount Rates," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(325), pages 1-23, January.
    17. Kyle Chauvin & David Laibson & Johanna Mollerstrom, 2011. "Asset Bubbles and the Cost of Economic Fluctuations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 233-260, August.
    18. Tom Krebs & Martin Scheffel, 2016. "Labor Market Institutions and the Cost of Recessions," CESifo Working Paper Series 6262, CESifo.
    19. repec:pri:wwseco:dp235 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Barros, Fernando & Couto, Gabriel T. & Gomes, Fábio A.R., 2023. "On the welfare costs of business cycles: Beyond nondurable goods," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    21. Cho, Daeha & Ma, Eunseong, 2023. "The heterogeneous welfare effects of business cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    22. tom krebs, 2004. "welfare cost of business cycles when markets are incomplete," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 283, Econometric Society.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles; Consumption; Stabilization; Macroeconomic history;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s001429212400151x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.