In this paper the methodology to assess the effectiveness of automatic stabilizers is applied to Polish quarterly data for 2004-2012. The methodology is based on the separation of permanent from cyclical components of public expenditures and estimation the effect of stabilizers in private consumption and output. In European Monetary Union, without the possibility of monetary policy, passive fiscal policy is the only instrument that the authorities are able to use to dampen the effects of business cycle at national level. The paper presents the analysis of the effectiveness of fiscal policy in Poland based on the structural VAR approach. The analysis show a positive response of industrial production and private consumption to expenditure shocks. It is worth underlying that reaction of industrial production to cyclical component of government expenses is more significant that the reaction of private consumption. In both cases both variables response to public spending is immediate and it takes place in first quarter. (original abstract)
This study examines the impact of unemployment benefit system in stabilizing the economy in Poland in 2008-13. The goal is to answer the question: by how much do the automatic stabilizers in the Polish unemployment benefit system lower the volatility of aggregate demand? The effectiveness of unemployment benefits` automatic response to demand decline is measured using short-term elasticities of employment and government expenses for unemployment benefits with respect to output and marginal propensity to consume out of temporary change in income. To evaluate if automatic stabilizers have no delayed impact on the economy the IRF function in three variable VAR model is used. The paper concludes that unemployment benefits dampened consumption volatility by approximately 0,008% GDP. Impulse responses were used to simulate the dynamic response of disposable income and individual consumption to government's unemployment benefit payouts. Small stabilizing effectiveness of unemployment compensation can be explained by law rate of unemployed entitled to receive the compensation and also by the fact that insurance benefit payouts for unemployed people accounted only for 0,8% of total government expenses.(original abstract)
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