Nedim Dikmen
Nominal GDP And Macroeconomic Policy Choice: St. Louis Model Estimates
Summary:
In this study, we investigate the question of whether monetarist or Keynesian policies were more effective on GDP growth in Turkey. To this aim, we employ the St. Louis model and examine the statistical significance of the estimated parameters. The effects of changes in money supply or government expenditures on GDP growth are not only limited to the current period but might continue over time as well. Hence, we also include the lagged values of the explanatory variables in the model. The estimation period covers the 1981 – 2008 period. The model is estimated by OLS and captures the accumulated effects of the changes in the narrow and wide definitons of money supply (M1 and M2) and government expenditures on the growth of nominal GDP growth. These estimates correspond to the total or distributed lag multipliers for monetary and fiscal policies. The former is not found to be statistically significant whereas the latter is statistically significant. These findings indicate that Keynesian policies based on expansionary fiscal policy via increased government expenditures had more influence on GDP growth in Turkey than the monetarist approach. These results also reflect the various governments’ populist approaches for political purposes. Overall, we find that the St. Louis equation approach is a valid and applicable model in the Turkish case.
