Costello bows out with a predictable sideswipe Oct 20, 2009
He said the Reserve Bank's interest rate cuts, combined with the automatic stabilisers - increased welfare payments as tax receipts decreased - would have been sufficient to keep recession at bay ... I'm saying the automatic stabilisers would have stimulated the economy and I'm also saying that monetary policy was the appropriate instrument that needed to be adjusted because interest rates were too high in any event and should have been cut. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Australia)
G20: The key issues Sep 23, 2009
But even with these so-called "automatic stabilisers", IMF figures suggest that by 2010, their will only be a weak global stimulus. However, there will be an argument that cuts in interest rates, or other actions by central banks to boost the money supply, are also a key part of any economic stimulus package. (BBC News -- Business)
French model stands tall - at a price Sep 18, 2009
Meanwhile, its automatic stabilisers have prevented any great hardship. All this has helped the political fortunes of President Nicolas Sarkozy. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Awake at night Sep 8, 2009
As the G20 finance ministers observed last weekend in London, the poorest countries will get the worst of it, and they are reliant on that quarrelsome bunch of politicians for their "automatic stabilisers", in the form of a better resourced World Bank and IMF.. At their meeting, the ministers confirmed that the pledge drive was nearly over: almost all of the extra $850bn 518bn) for the international financial institutions that was agreed by the G20 heads in April has now been pledged by... (BBC News -- Business)
Signs of recovery in France, Germany Aug 15, 2009
Car scrappage schemes in France and Germany and the ''automatic stabilisers'' of their welfare systems have helped put a floor under the downturn, while near-zero market interest rates and emergency lending by the European Central Bank has stopped credit drying up. Crucially, neither country went through the sort of extreme debt bubble seen in Britain. (Sydney Morning Herald -- World)
Out of recession Aug 14, 2009
France and Germany have also benefited from what economists call automatic stabilisers. Their social security systems are more generous than the UK's and this has provided more support to consumers. (BBC News -- Business)
Another cash injection crucial Aug 10, 2009
Better yet, if much of the next round of stimulus is devoted to automatic stabilisers - such as compensating for the shortfall in state revenues - then if the economy does recover, the spending will not occur. There is little downside risk. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Don't let Turnbull fool you about debt Aug 8, 2009
Economists call this the effect of the budget's ''automatic stabilisers'', which automatically push the budget into deficit during recessions and thus cause an increase in net government spending, which helps to cushion the economy's fall. Once the economy starts recovering, the automatic stabilisers reverse direction and push the budget back towards surplus. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Germany: Merkel is the message Jun 26, 2009
6% of GDP this year and 2% in 2010, reckons the IMF, not counting automatic stabilisers such as unemployment insurance. But some trading partners still think Germany could do more, given its huge current-account surplus and its (pre-crisis) balanced budget. (The Economist)
Big deficit is a good step for more jobs May 16, 2009
This is why the budget's tendency to behave this way in every recession is referred to as the operation of the budget's "automatic stabilisers". The price of the budget's automatic tendency to help stabilise the economy is the incurring of a budget deficit, which has to be covered by borrowing. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Deficit shows why accountants make bad economists May 16, 2009
But the Government is doing more than merely allowing the automatic stabilisers to do their thing. It is also explicitly increasing its spending more on capital works than cash bonuses in an attempt to stimulate spending. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Briefing:The alluring French model May 8, 2009
All these automatic stabilisers , argues Ms Lagarde, help to support demand and should be counted as part of the fiscal stimulus package. Indeed, the finance ministry has received many recent visits from other governments officials interested in the French system. (The Economist)
Europe's economies: A new pecking order May 8, 2009
Generous welfare states have protected those who are always the first to suffer in a downturn from an immediate sharp drop in their incomes and acted as part of the automatic stabilisers that expand budget deficits when consumer spending shrinks. In Britain, and to an even greater extent in America, people have felt more exposed. (The Economist)
Divided we stand Apr 2, 2009
They argue that their economies rely much more on what are known as automatic stabilisers tools such as unemployment insurance payments, which increase automatically in a recession thus they do not need as much discretionary stimulus spending as countries, such as America, where welfare payments are much less generous. Deep differences remain. (The Economist)
COMMENT: We Are In It Together Apr 1, 2009
Because we have these " 00004000 automatic stabilisers" in the EU, any comparison of spending between the US and EU is highly misleading. This is why our positions on the overall scale of the stimulus are closer than they may appear at first sight. (India Times, India)
London economic summit: Brown's Big Top Mar 27, 2009
They concede that Europe may have done less in discretionary fiscal measures but point out that automatic stabilisers the boost from higher public spending and lower taxation that happens anyway when economies weaken are more powerful than in America, with its smaller state and social safety net. Mr Brown s ability to broker a deal on this crucial question is weakened by the increasingly apparent fragility of Britain s public finances. (The Economist)
King warns against more spending Mar 25, 2009
"I think it's right to accept that when the economy turns down and the automatic stabilisers kick in, so the increased benefit expenditures and lower tax revenues are bound to lead to higher fiscal deficits," he said. He is effectively saying that the government would be mad to consider another large stimulus package. (BBC News -- Business)
Treasury will die in ditch over balanced budget Mar 23, 2009
Federal Treasury's obsession with the budget doesn't mean it's opposed to allowing the budget's automatic stabilisers to push the budget into deficit during recessions, nor opposed to discretionary fiscal stimulus. But you see the signs of Treasury's preoccupation in its insistence that the stimulus be "temporary" - that is, once-only measures. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
Charlemagne: Fingers in the dyke Mar 21, 2009
The government argues that automatic stabilisers , including higher welfare payments and a falling tax take, amount to a stimulus worth tens of billions, even if you cannot see new bridges and schools being built with it. The flip side is a brutal deterioration of public finances: a projected budget surplus of 1% next year has been revised to a 5. (The Economist)
Union chief urges bigger pledge Mar 20, 2009
They argue that Europe's "automatic stabilisers" - social welfare payments such as unemployment benefit - add at least another 200bn euros to that package. Before pledging more funds they want to see the results of that stimulus, and of the hundreds of billions of euros poured into troubled banks. (BBC News -- Europe)
World economy 'to shrink in 2009' Mar 20, 2009
Taking into account the "automatic stabilisers", for example the increased spending on unemployment benefits that results from a slowdown, it says that in 2009 there will be a 2. 4% boost to GDP from fiscal expansion. (BBC News -- Business)
The G20: Talking-shop-on-Thames Mar 13, 2009
The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany s fiscal response is not as far behind America s as it appears. Not only does Germany feel its spending package is big enough, it is pressing for a quick return to balanced budgets when the crisis is over. (The Economist)
One crunch after another Mar 12, 2009
And expenditures on automatic stabilisers such as unemployment insurance rise in a recession. All this widens budget deficits. (The Economist)
Rudd needs courage to defuse time-bomb Feb 24, 2009
That leaves almost two-thirds of the deterioration, $129 billion, explained by the reversal of the budget's automatic stabilisers as the economy switched from continued growth to sharp downturn ... This is comforting news because, as the economically literate know, what the automatic stabilisers take away now they can be expected in due course to bring back. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Business)
