ECON103 Macroeconomics

ACU’s Graduate Attributes have a greater emphasis on ethical behaviour and community responsibility than those of many other universities. All of your units will enable you to develop some attributes.
On successful completion of this unit, you should have developed your ability to:
Recognise your responsibility to the common good, the environment and society
Apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making
Think critically and reflectively
Demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession
Solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account
Work both autonomously and collaboratively
Locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information
Utilise information and communication and other relevant technologies effectively

Topics will include:
• What is Economics about
• Macroeconomic challenges and choices;
• Determinants of economic growth;
• Inflation and its consequences;
• The nature of unemployment;
• The Balance of Payments and its significance;
• The nature of conflicting policy objectives;
• Fiscal Policy;
• Monetary Policy;
• Alternative economic policy approaches.

The main four determinants/components of the Aggregate Expenditure include household consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.

Household Consumption is the total amount of money that people sped on commodities over the period of the year. Household consumption include things like purchase of ball point pens, toilet paper and couches. Generally consumption is the expenditure on consumer durable as well as non-durable final goods. The determinants of Australian household consumption include consumer confidence, level of disposal income, and level of discretionary income (income-tax + interest), stock of personal wealth, fiscal policy and low inflationary expectations.   

Investment is the amount of money individual and business invest on capital spending. Investment include things like novel manufacturing machines, improvements in real estate as well as purchases of buildings. The investment is the expenditure on capital goods by the private and individuals firms including changes in the planned inventories. The determinants of investment in Australia include business confidence, technological advancement, monetary policy, government policy, profit levels, fiscal policy, and urbanization or industrialization increases, demand for raw materials, requiring enormous capital expansion to meet demand.

Government expenditure: The total amount of money which the Australian government is spending on both capital goods and current goods. Australian government spending will determine the growth, employment and income. The determinants of Australian government expenditure include government policy objectives as well as macroeconomic stability or the GFC stimulus package.

 Net exports: The net exports net export is determined by subtracting total Australian import from total exports of Australia. It includes the Australian net external demand minus foreign expenditure on the Australia goods less spending on imports. This is the solely component that is able to be a negative number. The net export will be negative if the imports is greater than exports. Factors affecting net export in Australia include domestic and foreign activity, tariffs, exchange rates as well as terms of trade.

Thus the AE is given by the formula:

 AE=Aggregate Expenditure

C=Household consumption

I= Investment

G= Government spending

X= Net exports

The formula for AE is given by the basic addition problem:

AE=C+I+G+X

 Alterations in such determinants subsequently trigger shifts of the AE line. The principle of the effective demand that Keynes proposed as the significant theoretical variation between Keynesian economics and the classical economic signals that the AE are mainly anchored on the prevailing income and production levels. Where individuals have increased income, then they remained inclined to spending more. Less income leads to the less expenditure.

The determinants of the AE affect the AE line much like any determinants affecting the respective curvature-they trigger the curvature to shift. This can be illustrated by the diagram below presenting the AE line, labelled AE. The AE determinants can cause either a surge or a plunge in the AE.

 Increase in AE:

A surge in the AE is depicted by the upward shift of the AE line. At every level of income and production, one or more of 4 sectors have greater AE.

Decrease in AE:

A decline in AE is demonstrated by the downward shift of AE lin. At every level of production and income, one or more of 4 sectors have less AE.

The shifts of the AE line take front stage in the Keynesian economics. They are source of the instability in the business cycle. A shift in the AE line disrupts the equality between the aggregate production and AE. An upward shift will correspond with the expansion of the business cycle whereas a downward one corresponds with the contraction of the business cycle.

The increase in household consumption in an Australian economy means an increase in the demand of goods and services. With increased demand of goods, more production will be required and hence increasing the employment and hence the income will increase as wages increase which then leads to growth in the economy of Australia. On the other hand, a decrease in the household consumption means a decrease in demand for goods and services. With decreased demand for goods, some business will retrench workers hence leading to unemployment and hence reduced income which then contracts the growth of economy in Australia.

   Increased investment is caused by lower rates of interest which leads to higher employment and income leading to higher growth of economy of Australia thus the AE line to shift upwards. This means an increase in the number of jobs being created and hence increasing income as more labors are employed boosting employment. With increased employment, the economy of Australia will expand leading to increased growth. However, a decrease in investment caused by an increase in interest rates will contract the economy as many people will be laid off hence leading to reduced growth. This is because higher rates of interest surge cost of borrowing utilized in financing certain kinds of consumption alongside investment expenditure in Australia. Where the borrowing cost surges, the business and household sectors are less probably to effect the resulting spending on consumer durable goods alongside capital goods. Thus, the AE plunges and AE line shifts downwards.

An increase in net export will lead to increased income, unemployment and growth. An increase in export is caused by a higher exchange rates: in Australia. For example, where price of Australian goods increases from $0.1 a good to $0.11 a good, then Australian imports into the US become expensive and the United States exports to Australia becomes less expensive. Thus, imports into Australia drops and export of Australian goods into the US rises, increasing the net export and triggering AE line to shift upwards in Australia. Increased exports from Australia means that much goods will have to be produced and exported abroad and hence more labors will be employed leading to increased income, and high economic growth in the Australia and the reverse holds.  

An increased in government expenditure means an increased in government consumption of goods leading to an expansion of the economy. On the other hand, a contraction in government expenditure leads to a contraction in the economy. The government can use both fiscal and monetary policy to increase expenditure.  For example, when the Australian government uses favorable fiscal policy which is the desire to counter instability in business-cycle at federal level via fiscal policy, there will be an increased growth, income and employment. The government is inclined to surge the autonomous government purchases to counter the contracting business-cycle thereby triggering an increased employment, income and growth as the AE line shifts upwards. Expanding business-cycle alternatively to the extent of provoking inflation makes the government to reduce autonomous government purchases thereby triggering a descending shift of the AE line. 

References

Abbruzzo, A., Brida, J.G. and Scuderi, R., 2014. Determinants of individual tourist expenditure as a network: Empirical findings from Uruguay. Tourism Management, 43, pp.36-45.

Dayour, F., Adongo, C.A. and Taale, F., 2016. Determinants of backpackers' expenditure. Tourism Management Perspectives, 17, pp.36-43.

Ghosh, C. and Petrova, M.T., 2017. The Impact of Capital Expenditures on Property Performance in Commercial Real Estate. The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 55(1), pp.106-133.

Stiglitz, J.E. and Rosengard, J.K., 2015. Economics of the Public Sector: Fourth International Student Edition. WW Norton & Company.