In order to combat this deficit spending, taxes are increased to generate more revenue to pay off this spending. In response, consumers will spend less money and save more, thus causing a decrease in consumption and less money in the economy. Soon, there is a decrease in investment because products are not being sold. Prices drop, and the economy lowers into a recession.
Macroeconomic activity Is defined is the study of the economy as a whole, especially whether resources of the society are being used efficiently as possible and whether the ability of the country to satisfy it wants is growing over time. Aggregate supply refers to the value of goods and services that can country can produce. Aggregate demand means the total amount of spending in the economy by groups such as: consumers, business firms, the government and people from overseas who buy our goods and services. If aggregate demand is to high then problems such as inflation occur because the amount of people who want to spend exceeds the amount of goods and services that can be produced. However if aggregate demand is low, the society faces slow growth and unemployment.
For example, if interest rates increase, the income of homeowners who have variable-rate mortgages will fall – leading to a decline in their effective purchasing power. The effects of a rate change are greater when the level of existing mortgage debt is high, leading to a rise in debt-servicing burdens for home-owners. On the other hand, a rise in interest rates boosts the disposable income of people who have paid off their mortgage and who have positive net savings in bank and building society accounts. Consumer demand for credit would also increase Aggregate Demand, as higher interest rates increase the cost of servicing debt on credit cards and should lead to a deceleration in the growth of retail sales and
When the demand for U.S. dollars increases, the value of the dollar will increase or appreciate (Stone 2008, pp. 685). As a result, U.S. products become more expensive for foriegners causing a reduction in exports and increasing imports. This not only effects the U.S. economy, but also affects the economies in other countries. Monetary policies influence and are influenced by international developments, including exchange rates, and based on these market conditions the U.S. government can make strategic changes to these policies to maintain the country’s economic stability (full employment, stable growth and price stability).
For consumers, interest rates represent the available funds they are willing to borrow to satisfy today’s needs. For businesses they represent the cost of borrowing money to invest in the growth of a company. Interest rates affect the economy. As the Fed raises or lowers short-term interest rates, banks may raise or lower the interest rates they charge borrowers, including the prime rate (Northrop Grumman, 2009). Changes in the prime rate may affect the whole economy.
However, both monetary and fiscal policy may be used to influence the performance of the economy in the short run. In general, expansionary monetary policy is expected to improve the economy's rate of growth of output (measured by Gross Domestic Product or GDP) in the quarters ahead; tight or contractionary monetary policy is designed to slow the economy in the future to offset inflationary pressures. Likewise, expansionary fiscal policies, tax cuts, and spending increases are normally expected to stimulate economic growth in the short run, while contractionary fiscal policy, tax increases and spending cuts tend to slow the rate of future economic expansion. Question 2 The workings of Monetary and fiscal policy The aim of all governments is to achieve and maintain economic growth and price stability. However, when the economy is in an inflationary situation, there is the need to implement policies to reverse this trend; these policies are referred to as contractionary fiscal policies.
Consumer surplus is a measure of the welfare that people gain from the consumption of goods and services, or a measure of the benefits they derive from the exchange of goods. Consumer surplus is the difference between the total amount that consumers are willing and able to pay for a good or service (indicated by the demand curve) and the total amount that they actually do pay (i.e. the market price for the product). The level of consumer surplus is shown by the area under the demand curve and above the ruling market price as illustrated in the diagram below: Price discrimination and consumer surplus Producers often take advantage of consumer surplus when setting prices. If a business can identify groups of consumers within their market who are willing and able to pay different prices for the same products, then sellers may engage in price discrimination – the aim of which is to extract from the purchaser, the price they are willing to pay, thereby turning consumer surplus into extra revenue.
More reserves are held in their account at the central bank. With these additional reserves, they can expand credit and create more money. (Bagus 2011) The FED is more passionate than the ECB about cutting interest rates to boost the economy. The ECB main goal is to keep inflation low, while the FED fights a double battle with not only fighting inflation but also unemployment. More things can affect how the ECB reacts when I comes to inflation and mostly targets a broader price index that includes things that doesn’t bother the FEDs as much, such as the Libya-related oil spike in 2011.
If there is spare capacity (negative output gap), then demand side policies can play a role in increasing economic growth. For example if we decrease interest rates, we will increase the demand in the economy as people have more money as their mortgage costs are decreased. It is the same idea with lowering taxes - this will boost demand, as people have more money to spend as less is taken away from them by the government. Aggregate demand is made up of consumption (consumer spending, Investments Government spending and Exports (minus) imports (Net exports). If anything affects these factors will result in affecting the demand.
1. Explain how open market operation determine the cash rate Open market operations (OMO) involve the purchasing and selling of government bonds in the short term money market (STMM). This affects the cash rate by changing the amount of currency available in the STMM, and as the cash rate is in reality the interest rate in the STMM, by influencing the amount of currency, through the factors of supply and demand the cash rate is then changed. This can be seen in the situation where the RBA purchases many government bonds in the OMO, thus releasing a large supply of currency into the market. Due to excess supply, demand for currency falls and there is a corresponding decrease in the interest rates in the STMM.