Is the Austrian business cycle theory still relevant?

Abstract

We compile econometric evidence from the latest available time series data on US savings, consumption, interest rates, and gross domestic product (GDP) to test a reduced form model of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT). We build indexes that mimic the gap between the market and natural rates of interest and, using this gap as a proxy for expansionary policy, uncover evidence that changes in reserves lead to changes in real GDP in the manner predicted by ABCT. In addition, we establish that the pattern of endogenous changes in output, from positive to negative, also conforms to the predictions of ABCT. Thus, by incorporating improvements with regard to data and methods over the few other examples of econometric work in this area, we provide more distinctive evidence on ABCT relative to competing theories of the business cycle than has been done previously.