DP5642 Macroeconomic Policy and the Distribution of Growth Rates
Author(s): | Vatcharin Sirimaneetham, Jonathan Temple |
Publication Date: | April 2006 |
Keyword(s): | Bayesian Model Averaging, counterfactuals, economic growth, macroeconomic policy, Washington Consensus |
JEL(s): | O23, O40 |
Programme Areas: | International Macroeconomics |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5642 |
We examine the view that high-quality macroeconomic policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for economic growth. We first construct a new index of the quality of macroeconomic policy. We then directly compare growth rate distributions across countries with good and bad policies; use Bayesian methods to examine the partial correlation between policy and growth; and outline how growth and steady-state income levels might have differed, had all countries achieved good policy outcomes. One finding is that bad macroeconomic policies can be offset by other factors, but the fastest-growing countries in our sample all shared high-quality macroeconomic management.