Transmission of a Resource Boom:  The Case of Australia

Abstract

This paper presents evidence on the macroeconomic adjustment of a resource‐rich country to a resource boom using the effects of Chinese industrialization on Australia from 1988 to 2016. An SVAR model is specified, incorporating a proxy for Chinese resource demand and commodity prices to identify the effects of commodity supply and demand shocks on the Australian macroeconomy. We develop a multivariate historical decomposition to show how resource sector shocks lead the economy to deviate from a long‐run projection. The paper identifies four phases of the transmission of the resource boom before its conclusion in 2015.