STRATEGIES DEPLOYED TO DEAL WITH BLACK SWAN EVENTS: A QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF QUANTITATIVE EASING AND THE AUSTRALIAN HOUSING MARKET

Black Swan Events (BSEs) are those unplanned events that significantly and negatively impact various aspects of human life. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 have been considered by many as BSE in recent times. During these events, governments usually implement policies to assuage the impact on various sectors of the economy and the populace. This paper identified some strategies and policies adopted by the Australian government during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the QE monetary policy and their impact on the housing market from the perspective of stakeholders in the industry. A qualitative research method was used to solicit information from respondents. A thematic analysis was employed to unravel the government's fiscal policies and the QE monetary policy as responsible for mitigating the effects of BSE. These policies sought to, among other reasons, keep interest rates low and keep money in the economy to revive the ailing economy. The findings revealed that the BSEs affected the Australian economy in multiple ways. We also found that the conventional and unconventional policy strategies deployed in response to the BSEs in Australia were impacting the Australian housing market in varying significance manner.