Fiscal Policy in Sweden : Analyzing the Effectiveness of Fiscal policy During the Recent Business Cycle

Abstract: The economic downturn of 2008-2010 has encouraged many economists andpoliticians to reconsider the role of fiscal policy. Whereas there is a broadly acceptedmodel which describes the influence of monetary policy on the economy, there is noconsensus concerning the fiscal policy.This paper aims to study the effectiveness of fiscal policy actions in Sweden over thepast 15 years, starting from the end of the banking crisis of 1992-93 to date. It has aspecific focus on the measures which were introduced in 2007-2010 and employs bothqualitative and quantitative analyses.The qualitative analysis investigates different expansionary fiscal measures, inter alia,the earned income tax credit, the new legislation for crisis management of banks, theguarantee program and the establishment of stability fund.The quantitative analysis is based on a 4-variable Vector Autoregression model whichhelps to identify the influence of general government expenditure, revenue and centralgovernment debt on GDP fluctuations over the past 15 years. The results demonstrate apositive response of GDP to an increase in government expenditure, with the maximumvalue of response achieved after 8 quarters. GDP also grows in response to a positiveshock in the central government debt, which is in line with the macroeconomic theory ofexpansionary fiscal policy. The positive response to an increase of revenue is somewhatcontradictory, and can become a topic for a further in-depth research.The economic downturn of 2008-2010 has encouraged many economists andpoliticians to reconsider the role of fiscal policy. Whereas there is a broadly acceptedmodel which describes the influence of monetary policy on the economy, there is noconsensus concerning the fiscal policy.This paper aims to study the effectiveness of fiscal policy actions in Sweden over thepast 15 years, starting from the end of the banking crisis of 1992-93 to date. It has aspecific focus on the measures which were introduced in 2007-2010 and employs bothqualitative and quantitative analyses.The qualitative analysis investigates different expansionary fiscal measures, inter alia,the earned income tax credit, the new legislation for crisis management of banks, theguarantee program and the establishment of stability fund.The quantitative analysis is based on a 4-variable Vector Autoregression model whichhelps to identify the influence of general government expenditure, revenue and centralgovernment debt on GDP fluctuations over the past 15 years. The results demonstrate apositive response of GDP to an increase in government expenditure, with the maximumvalue of response achieved after 8 quarters. GDP also grows in response to a positiveshock in the central government debt, which is in line with the macroeconomic theory ofexpansionary fiscal policy. The positive response to an increase of revenue is somewhatcontradictory, and can become a topic for a further in-depth research.