Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 25, 2023 erstellt
Description:
This study provides detailed empirical facts about Ghana's post-independence business cycle from 1960 to 2021. We highlight how Ghana's business cycle and its relationship with various aspects of the Ghanaian macroeconomy have changed over time across three episodes (1960-1985, 1986-2010, and 2011-2021). We pay special attention to Ghana's business cycle moderation which began in the mid-1980s and lasted until about 2010. Using several statistical methods, we highlight the various potential sources of the moderation---among monetary, aggregate demand, and aggregate supply factors. Our results show that the moderation was influenced by both policy and luck. First, we find a statistically significant drop in the volatilities of investment, capital, labor, TFP, and inflation rate during the moderation period, supporting the luck hypothesis. Second, adding to existing research on the policy hypothesis, we hypothesize that good policies during the moderation period mainly mitigated the impact of consumption shocks on Ghana's output volatility. One piece of evidence supporting this hypothesis is the observed breakdown in the correlation coefficient between output and consumption variables in the mid-1980s