Stabilization Policies and Long Term Growth: Policy Implications from an Agent-based Macroeconomic Model

Do fiscal stabilization policies affect the long-term growth of the economy? If so, are the long-term effects growth-enhancing or growth-reducing? These questions have again become relevant to the political and academic debate since governments have been forced to spend considerable funds for economic stimulus packages as a response to the recent economic crisis. The answers provided by the economic literature are inconclusive. But a general observation is that, while the theoretical literature has emphasized the importance of structural issues as, e.g., the modeling approach of endogenous technological change, less attention has been paid to an elaborate design of the considered fiscal stabilization policies. This paper uses a closed agent-based macroeconomic model that generates endogenous business cycles to emphasize the role of the policy design for long-term growth effects of stabilization policies. By comparing a demand-oriented consumption policy and two different investment subsidizing policies, we can show that the considered policies are equally successful in smoothing the business cycle, but have different implications for the medium and long-term growth of the economy. Hence, not only modeling assumptions as stressed by the literature but also the concrete implementation of the policy seems to be important for the analysis of long-term effects of stabilization policies.