12.1Aggregate Demand in Keynesian Analysis

12.1 Aggregate Demand in Keynesian Analysis

LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain real GDP, recessionary gaps, and inflationary gaps
• Recognize the Keynesian AD/AS model
• Identify the determining factors of both consumption expenditure and investment expenditure
• Analyze the factors that determine government spending and net exports

The Keynesian perspective focuses on aggregate demand. The idea is simple: firms produce output only if they expect it to sell. Thus, while the availability of the factors of production determines a nation’s potential GDP, the amount of goods and services that actually sell, known as real GDP, depends on how much demand exists across the economy. Figure 12.3 illustrates this point.

FIGURE 12.3The Keynesian AD/AS ModelThe Keynesian View of the AD/AS Model uses an SRAS curve, which is horizontal at levels of output below potential and vertical at potential output. Thus, when beginning from potential output, any decrease in AD affects only output, but not prices. Any increase in AD affects only prices, not output. Keynes argued that, for reasons we explain shortly, aggregate demand is not stable—that it can change unexpectedly. Suppose the economy starts where AD intersects SRAS at P0 and Yp. Because Yp is potential output, the economy is at full employment. Because AD is volatile, it can easily fall. Thus, even if we start at Yp, if AD falls, then we find ourselves in what Keynes termed a recessionary gap. The economy is in equilibrium but with less than full employment, as Y1 in Figure 12.3 shows. Keynes believed that the economy would tend to stay in a recessionary gap, with its attendant unemployment, for a significant period of time. In the same way (although we do not show it in the figure), if AD increases, the economy could experience an inflationary gap, where demand is attempting to push the economy past potential output. Consequently, the economy experiences inflation. The key policy implication for either situation is that government needs to step in and close the gap, increasing spending during recessions and decreasing spending during booms to return aggregate demand to match potential output. Recall from The Aggregate Supply-Aggregate Demand Model that aggregate demand is total spending, economy-wide, on domestic goods and services. (Aggregate demand (AD) is actually what economists call total planned expenditure. Read the appendix on The Expenditure-Output Model for more on this.) You may also remember that aggregate demand is the sum of four components: consumption expenditure, investment expenditure, government spending, and spending on net exports (exports minus imports). In the following sections, we will examine each component through the Keynesian perspective.

What Determines Consumption Expenditure?

Consumption expenditure is spending by households and individuals on durable goods, nondurable goods, and services. Durable goods are items that last and provide value over time, such as automobiles. Nondurable goods are things like groceries—once you consume them, they are gone. Recall from The Macroeconomic Perspective that services are intangible things consumers buy, like healthcare or entertainment. Keynes identified three factors that affect consumption:

• Disposable income: For most people, the single most powerful determinant of how much they consume is how much income they have in their take-home pay, also known as disposable income, which is income after taxes.
• Expected future income: Consumer expectations about future income also are important in determining consumption. If consumers feel optimistic about the future, they are more likely to spend and increase overall aggregate demand. News of recession and troubles in the economy will make them pull back on consumption.
• Wealth or credit: When households experience a rise in wealth, they may be willing to consume a higher share of their income and to save less. When the U.S. stock market rose dramatically in the late 1990s, for example, U.S. savings rates declined, probably in part because people felt that their wealth had increased and there was less need to save. How do people spend beyond their income, when they perceive their wealth increasing? The answer is borrowing. On the other side, when the U.S. stock market declined about

40% from March 2008 to March 2009, people felt far greater uncertainty about their economic future, so savings rates increased while consumption declined. Finally, Keynes noted that a variety of other factors combine to determine how much people save and spend. If household preferences about saving shift in a way that encourages consumption rather than saving, then AD will shift out to the right. LINK IT UP Visit this website (https://openstax.org/l/Diane_Rehm) for more information about how the recession affected various groups of people.

What Determines Investment Expenditure?

We call spending on new capital goods investment expenditure. Investment falls into four categories: producer’s durable equipment and software, nonresidential structures (such as factories, offices, and retail locations), changes in inventories, and residential structures (such as single-family homes, townhouses, and apartment buildings). Businesses conduct the first three types of investment, while households conduct the last. Keynes’s treatment of investment focuses on the key role of expectations about the future in influencing business decisions. When a business decides to make an investment in physical assets, like plants or equipment, or in intangible assets, like skills or a research and development project, that firm considers both the expected investment benefits (future profit expectations) and the investment costs (interest rates).

• Expectations of future profits: The clearest driver of investment benefits is expectations for future profits.

When we expect an economy to grow, businesses perceive a growing market for their products. Their higher degree of business confidence will encourage new investment. For example, in the second half of the 1990s, U.S. investment levels surged from 18% of GDP in 1994 to 21% in 2000. However, when a recession started in 2001, U.S. investment levels quickly sank back to 18% of GDP by 2002.

• Interest rates also play a significant role in determining how much investment a firm will make. Just as individuals need to borrow money to purchase homes, so businesses need financing when they purchase big ticket items. The cost of investment thus includes the interest rate. Even if the firm has the funds, the interest rate measures the opportunity cost of purchasing business capital. Lower interest rates stimulate investment spending and higher interest rates reduce it.

Many factors can affect the expected profitability on investment. For example, if the energy prices decline, then investments that use energy as an input will yield higher profits. If government offers special incentives for investment (for example, through the tax code), then investment will look more attractive; conversely, if government removes special investment incentives from the tax code, or increases other business taxes, then investment will look less attractive. As Keynes noted, business investment is the most variable of all the components of aggregate demand.

What Determines Government Spending?

The third component of aggregate demand is federal, state, and local government spending. Although we usually view the United States as a market economy, government still plays a significant role in the economy. As we discuss in Environmental Protection and Negative Externalities (http://openstax.org/books/principles- microeconomics-ap-courses-2e/pages/12-introduction-to-environmental-protection-and-negative- externalities) and Positive Externalities and Public Goods (http://openstax.org/books/principles- microeconomics-ap-courses-2e/pages/13-introduction-to-positive-externalities-and-public-goods), government provides important public services such as national defense, transportation infrastructure, and education. Keynes recognized that the government budget offered a powerful tool for influencing aggregate demand. Not only could more government spending stimulate AD (or less government spending reduce it), but lowering or raising tax rates could influence consumption and investment spending. Keynes concluded that during extreme times like deep recessions, only the government had the power and resources to move aggregate demand. For example, during the 2020 pandemic-induced recession, the federal government gave money to state and local governments and to households to support the economy when many firms and governments needed to shut down or suffered a large decline in revenue and needed to lay off workers.

What Determines Net Exports?

Recall that exports are domestically produced products that sell abroad while imports are foreign produced products that consumers purchase domestically. Since we define aggregate demand as spending on domestic goods and services, export expenditures add to AD, while import expenditures subtract from AD. Two sets of factors can cause shifts in export and import demand: changes in relative growth rates between countries and changes in relative prices between countries. What is happening in the countries' economies that would be purchasing those exports heavily affects the level of demand for a nation's exports. For example, if major importers of American-made products like Canada, Japan, and Germany have recessions, exports of U.S. products to those countries are likely to decline. Conversely, the amount of income in the domestic economy directly affects the quantity of a nation's imports: more income will bring a higher level of imports. Relative prices of goods in domestic and international markets can also affect exports and imports. If U.S. goods are relatively cheaper compared with goods made in other places, perhaps because a group of U.S. producers has mastered certain productivity breakthroughs, then U.S. exports are likely to rise. If U.S. goods become relatively more expensive, perhaps because a change in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and other currencies has pushed up the price of inputs to production in the United States, then exports from U.S. producers are likely to decline. Table 12.1 summarizes the reasons we have explained for changes in aggregate demand. Reasons for a Decrease in Aggregate Demand Reasons for an Increase in Aggregate Demand Consumption Consumption

• Rise in taxes
• Fall in income
• Rise in interest rates
• Desire to save more
• Decrease in wealth
• Fall in future expected income
• Decrease in taxes
• Increase in income
• Fall in interest rates
• Desire to save less
• Rise in wealth
• Rise in future expected income

Investment Investment

• Fall in expected rate of return
• Rise in interest rates
• Drop in business confidence
• Rise in expected rate of return
• Drop in interest rates
• Rise in business confidence

Government Government

• Reduction in government spending
• Increase in taxes
• Increase in government spending
• Decrease in taxes

Net Exports Net Exports

• Decrease in foreign demand
• Relative price increase of U.S. goods
• Increase in foreign demand
• Relative price drop of U.S. goods

TABLE 12.1Determinants of Aggregate Demand

12.2 The Building Blocks of Keynesian Analysis

LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Evaluate the Keynesian view of recessions through an understanding of sticky wages and prices and the importance of aggregate demand
• Explain the coordination argument, menu costs, and macroeconomic externality
• Analyze the impact of the expenditure multiplier

Now that we have a clear understanding of what constitutes aggregate demand, we return to the Keynesian argument using the model of aggregate demand/aggregate supply (AD/AS). (For a similar treatment using Keynes’ income-expenditure model, see the appendix on The Expenditure-Output Model.) Keynesian economics focuses on explaining why recessions and depressions occur and offering a policy prescription for minimizing their effects. The Keynesian view of recession is based on two key building blocks. First, aggregate demand is not always automatically high enough to provide firms with an incentive to hire enough workers to reach full employment. Second, the macroeconomy may adjust only slowly to shifts in aggregate demand because of sticky wages and prices, which are wages and prices that do not respond to decreases or increases in demand. We will consider these two claims in turn, and then see how they are represented in the AD/AS model. The first building block of the Keynesian diagnosis is that recessions occur when the level of demand for goods and services is less than what is produced when labor is fully employed. In other words, the intersection of aggregate supply and aggregate demand occurs at a level of output less than the level of GDP consistent with full employment. Suppose the stock market crashes, as in 1929, or suppose the housing market collapses, as in 2008. In either case, household wealth will decline, and consumption expenditure will follow. Suppose

Simpler explanation — Cambridge AS & A Level Economics

The aggregate demand (AD) curve shows the different quantities of total demand for the economy’s products at different prices. A rise in the price level will cause a contraction in aggregate demand and a fall in the price level will result in an extension in aggregate demand. The downward sloping nature of the AD curve is shown in Figure 17.3. The relationship between aggregate demand and the price level might seem similar to the relationship shown in the demand curve for an individual product. There is, however, a significant difference.

A demand curve for a product shows the relationship between a change in the relative price of a product and the quantity demanded. The price of the product is changing but it is assumed that the prices of other products have not changed. More of the product is purchased when the price falls, in part because people change from rival products. In contrast, in the case of the AD curve, the prices of most products are changing in the same direction. So why does aggregate demand fall when the price level rises and rise when the price level falls?

There are three reasons: The wealth effect: A rise in the price level will reduce the amount of goods and services that people’s wealth can buy. The purchasing power of savings held in the form of bank accounts and other financial assets will fall. The international effect: A rise in the price level will reduce demand for net exports as exports will become less price competitive while imports will become more price competitive. The interest rate effect: A rise in the price level will increase demand for money to pay the higher prices. This, in turn, will increase the interest rate.