[FONT="]Automatic stabilisers [/FONT]
[FONT="]Even without government intervention, levels of revenue and expenditure change in response to changing economic stabilisers. Automatic Stabilisers are policies that operate automatically to counterbalance the trend in the level of economic growth and to stabilise the economy. The main two automatic stabilisers are a progressive personal income tax and unemployment benefits. Their operation can be illustrated by the following two situations:[/FONT]
·[FONT="]An increase in the level of economy activity[/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Leads to income rising, which results in increased Taxation.[/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Unemployment falls; reducing expenditure on unemployed benefits. [/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Budget outcome: a smaller deficit or larger surplus. [/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Automatic stabiliser lead to a contraction in aggregate demand, having a stabilising effect on the economy.[/FONT]
·[FONT="]A decrease in the level of economic activity:[/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Income levels falls, leading to a fall in taxation revenue.[/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Unemployment rises, increasing government liabilities. [/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Budget outcome: smaller surplus or bigger deficit. [/FONT]
[FONT="]o[/FONT][FONT="]Automatically stimulating aggregate demand even, having a stabilising effect on the economy. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The Budget outcomes are the result of two components. [/FONT]
Ø[FONT="]Changes to government revenue and expenditure brought about by changes in the level of economic activity – known as the cyclical component of the budget. [/FONT]
Ø[FONT="]A deliberate revenue and expenditure change initiated by the government - known as the structural component of the budget – It also reveals the government’s fiscal stance.
I copied that from my summaries, but just follow the dot points and it should make sense.
Hope it helps
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