The Sectoral Impact of Monetary Policy in Australia: A Structural VAR Approach

Abstract

In recent years, the global resources boom has had a major impact on the Australian economy. In the mining rich state of Western Australia, rapid commodity price growth has contributed to strong economic conditions. However, state economies that rely heavily on manufacturing industries have fared less well, forced to cope with higher input costs as well as the effects of a stronger exchange rate. The resulting 'two-speed economy' presents a challenge for monetary policy, which must manage the diverging performances of different sectors and regions. In light of these issues, this thesis develops a small, open economy structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model of Australia in order to examine the impact of monetary policy on sectoral output. The results suggest that monetary policy shocks have uneven impacts across different sectors. The construction and manufacturing sectors show the most sizeable and rapid responses, while the mining sector is not as interest rate sensitive as the existing literature would suggest. This thesis also adds to our understanding of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in a small, open economy. In particular, while the results indicate that global economic conditions account for a large proportion of the variation in mining sector output, there is evidence that the exchange rate channel of monetary policy does not play a dominant role in influencing output in this sector. One implication of these findings is that the Reserve Bank of Australia will find it difficult to stabilise output across regional economies in the face of a resources boom. The model also indicates that changes to monetary policy have long, non-trivial real impacts, and there is some suggestion that the credit channel of monetary policy has an important influence in propagating monetary policy shocks.