Stimulating an economy in recession

Review of essay

Rating: 5 star(s)

Response to the question

This essay strongly captures how the government might stimulate the economy in an economic recession, and evaluates the use of these government policies to a certain extent. The writer begins with very strongly by accurately defining “recession” and this accuracy is indeed splendid as many students’ idea of a recession is vague in terms of definition. The writer remembers to look past the negative GDP aspect to focus on low unemployment, interest rates, etc as well. The definition of GDP could be more refined. The writer’s approach in explaining that both AD and AS play a role and then elaborating how the components of AD can be affected by expansionary policies is commendable for its clarity. Such links lined up with real-life examples puts the issue in a realistic aspect and makes the essay flow logically. Throughout the essay, the writer also makes clear reference to the graphs and diagrams, but the bad aspect is that these diagrams do not appear properly. The evaluation section is very well done in that the writer discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the demand-side and supply-side policies employed to curb recessions. The writer gives a balanced account of these policies and manages to draw a justified conclusion on these policies.

Level of analysis

The essay is deep in its content to a large extent. While the initial part on explaining recession may not be crafted very well, the subsequent section on evaluating the policies is of the great depth. The writer discusses the idea that each of these policies is suitable in handling a certain aspect of recession – demand side policies to boost aggregate demand or supply side policies to reduce unemployment. The writer accounts for long-term and short-term effects of these policies. The writer then zooms in on the stakeholders of these policies, namely the government, the producers and consumers. The writer also elaborates on the advantages and disadvantages of these policies after explaining how these policies are designed to work. A remarkable aspect of this essay is the complex blend of both macroeconomic and microeconomic concepts where relevant. For example, the writer comments on the opportunity cost of economic decisions. A small area for improvement would be to refer to diagrams in the evaluation section as well as to define the economic terms such as opportunity cost, which markers especially look out for. Finally, the wrier could manage to squeeze in a conclusion at the end on which is the best policy in which situations based on the analysis so far.

Quality of writing

The use of technical terms is only moderate. For example, more specificity and accuracy could be shown in the terms used such as the particular type of unemployment prevalent in a recession as well as the technical terms of these “supply side policies”. Definitions for key economic terms like taxation, opportunity cost are lacking as well. Nevertheless, the essay shows immense effort in maintaining a high standard of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. Overall, this is an excellent piece of economics commentary.