The Euro Crisis and Swedish GDP Growth — A Study of Spillovers

In this paper, a Bayesian VAR model is used to study the effects of euro area shocks on GDP growth in the small open economy of Sweden. A novel feature is that the new policy uncertainty index of Baker et al.(2013) is introduced in the model. The model behaves well in terms of reasonable impulse response functions. The specific effects of the euro crisis are investigated through a historical decomposition which shows that shocks to euro area GDP growth have been a reasonably important factor for Swedish GDP growth, supporting it during 2010 and holding it back thereafter. Generally, shocks to policy uncertainty have held back Swedish GDP growth during the euro crises.