Dynamic link between oil prices and exchange rates: A non-linear approach

We explore the non-linear relationship between crude oil prices and exchange rates of major currencies from quantitative and structural perspectives, by utilizing bivariate normal mixture model. The correlation coefficients between oil prices and exchange rates demonstrate that their dependences typically start from 2004 then dynamically change over time. Then we investigate whether business cycle and oil price shocks as two possible exogenous factors affect the dependence structure of oil-FX linkage. We find significant structural heterogeneity during economic expansion while little evidence of heterogeneity in recession. This finding provides alternative interpretations for the enhanced dependence between oil prices and exchange rates and generates implications of financialization in commodity market. In terms of oil price shocks (Kilian, 2009), the normal mixture model captures significant heterogeneity, implying that unstable oil-FX dependence structure is frequently associated with oil aggregate demand shocks and oil-specific demand shocks. With an emphasis on the dynamic weights of two underlying states, we interestingly find that structural heterogeneities coincide with a variety of geopolitical and economic events. The application of normal mixture not only provide us knowledge of non-linear relationship between oil prices and exchange rates but also guidance for investors in risk management and portfolio diversification complementary to the traditional portfolio theory based on normal distribution.     

The impact of commodity price shocks in the presence of a trading relationship: A GVAR analysis of the NAFTA

This paper investigates the commodity price shocks and monetary shocks in the region covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), using a global vector autoregression (GVAR) approach. Our focus is on commodity price shocks which impact both directly through the aggregate price level, as well as through monetary policy related aggregates such as short-term interest rates. We first contrast the response of the real economy to commodity price shocks in two periods: 1983Q2–2015Q2 and 1994Q1–2015Q2, where the beginning of the second sample coincides with a statistically identified structural break, as well as the introduction of NAFTA. The results indicate that the commodity price shocks, such as for oil and metal, have a bigger impact on the real economy after NAFTA came into force, with metal prices having a larger quantitative impact on output in comparison to oil prices. Next, we investigate whether these changes have different implications for the impact of domestic monetary shocks in the three countries. We find that while the post-NAFTA period is characterized by a stronger domestic monetary policy response to commodity price shocks, the response to monetary shocks per se varies in the two time periods. In particular U.S. monetary policy, as reflected in shocks to short-term interest rates, has a weaker influence in the post-NAFTA period. Overall, the influence of global, commodity price shocks in the region relative to domestic monetary shocks is greater in the post-NAFTA period.     

Dynamic connectedness of oil price shocks and exchange rates

Using a novel method of isolating the oil price shocks, we study how different sources of oil price shocks are connected to exchange rates of major oil-dependent countries using daily data from March 1996 to February 2019. We find that oil price shocks resulting from changes in demand and risk significantly contribute to variation in exchange rates, while supply shocks have virtually no impact. The connectedness of this relationship between oil price shocks and exchange rates has significantly increased after the global financial crisis. We also find that oil price shocks do not explain the variation in exchange rate volatility but we document significant volatility connectedness among exchange rates. Our findings have important implications for policy makers and financial market participants.     

Macroeconomic impacts of oil price shocks in Asian economies

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic impact of structural oil shocks in four of the top oil-consuming Asian economies, using a VAR model. We identify three different structural oil shocks via sign restrictions: an oil supply shock, an oil demand shock driven by global economic activity and an oil-specific demand shock. The main results suggest that economic activity and prices respond very differently to oil price shocks depending on their types. In particular, an oil supply shock has a limited impact, while a demand shock driven by global economic activity has a significant positive effect in all four Asian countries examined. Our finding also includes that policy tools such as interest rates and exchange rates help mitigating the effects of supply shocks in Japan and Korea; however, they can be more actively used in response to demands shocks.     

Recent drivers of the real oil price: Revisiting and extending Kilian's (2009) findings

We replicate and update the results of Kilian (2009) to include the period since the financial crisis. We separate the drivers of the price of crude oil shocks into three components: oil supply shocks, aggregate demand shocks and oil-market specific demand shocks. We provide evidence that the run-up of oil prices in 2008 was mostly driven by aggregate demand shocks and to a lesser extend by oil-market specific demand shocks, complementing similar analyses in Baumeister and Kilian (2016a) and Kilian (2017). Our results confirm that the cumulative effect of aggregate demand disruptions on the price of crude oil started before 2007. Furthermore, aggregate demand shocks and oil-market specific demand shocks rather than oil supply shocks have the most significant effects on U.S. output and prices. The findings are robust to an alternative measure of global real economic activity.     

Expectations, learning, and the changing relationship between oil prices and the macroeconomy

This paper estimates a structural general equilibrium model to investigate the changing relationship between the oil price and macroeconomic variables. The oil price, through the role of oil in production and consumption, affects aggregate demand and supply in the model. The assumption of rational expectations is relaxed in favor of learning. Oil prices, therefore, affect the economy through an additional channel, i.e. through their effect on the formation of agents' beliefs.The estimated learning dynamics indicates that economic agents' perceptions about the effects of oil prices on the economy have changed over time: oil prices were perceived to have large effects on output and inflation in the 1970s, but only milder effects after the mid-1980s. Since expectations play a large role in the determination of output and inflation, the effects of oil price increases on expectations can magnify the response of macroeconomic variables to oil price shocks. In the estimated model, in fact, the implied responses of output and inflation to oil price shocks were much more pronounced in the 1970s than in 2008. Therefore, through the time variation in the impact of oil prices on beliefs, the paper can successfully explain the observed weakening of the effects of oil price shocks on real activity and inflation.     

Dynamic impacts of high oil prices on the bioethanol and feedstock markets

This study investigates the impacts of high international oil prices on the bioethanol and corn markets in the US. Between 2007 and 2008, the prices of major grain crops had increased sharply, reflecting the rise in international oil prices. These dual price shocks had caused substantial harm to the global economy. Employing a structural vector auto-regression model (SVAR), we analyze how increases in international oil prices could impact the prices of and demand for corn, which is used as a major bioethanol feedstock in the US. The results indicate that an increase in the oil price would increase bioethanol demand for corn and corn prices in the short run and that corn prices would stabilize in the long run as corn exports and feedstock demand for corn decline. Consequently, policies supporting biofuels should encourage the use of bioethanol co-products for feed and the development of marginal land to mitigate increases in the feedstock price.     

The role of market fundamentals and speculation in recent price changes for crude oil

I hypothesize that the price spike and collapse of 2007–2008 are driven by both changes in both market fundamentals and speculative pressures. Contrary to arguments for a demand shock, I hypothesize that prices rise sharply in 2007–2008 because ongoing growth in Chinese oil demand runs into a sudden and unexpected halt to a decade long increase in non-OPEC production. This caused a loss of OPEC spare capacity because increased demand for OPEC production runs ahead of increases in OPEC capacity. These changes are reinforced by speculative expectations. Although difficult to measure directly, I argue for the role of speculation based on the following: (1) a significant increase in private US crude oil inventories since 2004; (2) repeated and extended break-downs (starting in 2004) in the cointegrating relationship between spot and far month future prices that are inconsistent with the law of one price and arbitrage opportunities; and (3) statistical and predictive failures by an econometric model of oil prices that is based on market fundamentals. These changes are related to the behavior and impact of noise traders on asset prices to sketch mechanisms by which speculative expectations can affect crude oil prices.     

Analysis of real oil prices via trend-cycle decomposition

The recent fluctuations in the oil prices have intensified the discussion on the dynamics and causes of real oil price changes. While the long-run component of real oil prices seems to have a stochastic trend, global real economic activity has been thought to generate important changes in real oil prices. Based on this argument, in this paper, we analyze the real oil prices within a trend-cycle decomposition framework, where we impose a stochastic trend and assume the cyclical term to be affected by global economic conditions. We also let the parameters vary over time to see whether shocks to trend and the cycle have changing effects on the real oil prices. As a result, we find that shocks to trend are more persistent recently. In that sense, this paper contributes to the literature by offering an explanation for the increased volatility in oil prices. In addition, we show that global economic activity contributed also to the previous oil price shocks, which were regarded mainly as supply-side driven.     

Assessing the impact of US ethanol on fossil fuel markets: A structural VAR approach

Despite the growing importance of biofuels, the effect of biofuels on fossil fuel markets is not fully understood. We develop a joint structural Vector Auto Regression (VAR) model of the global crude oil, US gasoline, and US ethanol markets to examine whether the US ethanol market has had any impact on global oil markets. The structural VAR approach provides a unique method for decomposing price and quantity data into demand and supply shocks, allowing us to estimate the distinct dynamic effects of ethanol demand and supply shocks on the real prices of crude oil and US gasoline. Ethanol demand in the US is driven mainly by government support in the form of tax credits and blending mandates. Shocks to ethanol demand therefore reflect changes in policy more than any other factor. In contrast, ethanol supply shocks are driven by changes in feedstock prices. A principle finding is that a policy-driven ethanol demand expansion causes a statistically significant decline in real crude oil prices, while an ethanol supply expansion does not have a statistically significant impact on real oil prices. This suggests that even though US ethanol market is small, the influence of US biofuels policy on the crude oil market is pervasive. We also show that ethanol demand shocks are more important than ethanol supply shocks in explaining the fluctuation of real prices of crude oil and US gasoline.     

The macroeconomic effects of oil price fluctuations on a small open oil-producing country: The case of Trinidad and Tobago

Using vector autoregressive (VAR) methodology, this paper empirically investigates the macroeconomic effects of oil price fluctuations on Trinidad and Tobago. Overall, we find that the price of oil is a major determinant of economic activity of the country. Our impulse response functions suggest that following a positive oil price shock, output falls within the first two years followed by positive and growing response. We also investigate the macroeconomic impact of oil price volatility. Results suggest that an unanticipated shock to oil price volatility brings about random swings in the macroeconomy; however, only government revenue and the price level exhibit significant responses. With regard to the magnitude of the responses, shocks to oil price volatility tend to yield smaller macroeconomic impacts in comparison to shocks to oil prices. Variance decompositions suggest that the price of oil is a major component of forecast variation for most macroeconomic variables. Finally, Granger-causality tests indicate causality from oil prices to output and oil prices to government revenue.     

Does the volatility of commodity prices reflect macroeconomic uncertainty?

While there exists numerous studies on the macroeconomic effects of oil and commodity shocks, the literature is quite silent on the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on oil and commodity prices and, especially, on their volatility. This paper tackles this issue through the estimation of a structural threshold vector autoregressive (TVAR) model on a sample of 19 commodity markets. We aim at (i) assessing whether the effect of macroeconomic uncertainty shocks on commodity price returns depends on the degree of uncertainty, and (ii) investigating the transfer from macroeconomic uncertainty to price uncertainty using a newly developed measure of commodity price uncertainty. Our findings show that both agricultural and industrial markets are highly sensitive to the variability and the level of macroeconomic uncertainty, while the impact on precious metals is more parsimonious given their well-identified safe-haven role in time of economic turmoil. In addition, we find evidence that the recent 2007–09 recession has generated an unprecedented episode of high uncertainty in numerous commodity prices. Interestingly, our analysis further reveals that volatility and uncertainty in prices can be disconnected. This is especially true for the oil market as most important shocks in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s that lead to price volatility do not generate price uncertainty, highlighting the relevance of our uncertainty measure in linking uncertainty to predictability rather than to volatility.     

Dynamic relationship of oil price shocks and country risks

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between oil price shocks and country risks using a Structural VAR framework for a sample of both net oil-exporting and net oil-importing countries over the period January 1994–December 2014. The results reveal that country risk is significantly affected by oil price shocks, but the impacts are different. Unanticipated positive oil price shocks trigger a reduction (addition) in country risk for net oil-exporting country (net oil-importing countries). As to the responses of oil prices to country risk shock, evidence show that country risk shocks have a delayed significantly positive impacts on oil price for oil-exporting country. With respect to the effects of subcomponents of country risk, we find evidence that economic and political risk have a significant impact on supply-side shocks in net oil-exporting countries like Canada, while economic and political risk have a significant effect on supply-side shocks and oil specific demand shocks in net oil-importing countries like the US. These results are particularly important to policy makers and government.     

Time-varying persistence in real oil prices and its determinant

We provide empirical evidence for pronounced time-variation in the persistence of real oil prices. In particular, we find episodes of mild explosiveness next to periods with random walk and also mean-reverting behavior. We address the question whether dynamic persistence can be directly related to macro-financial variables, spot-futures spreads, spill-over effects from commodities and global real economic activity. Alongside these variables, we use a large data set of more than one-hundred fifty potential determinants featuring, for example, further oil-related variables (production and inventories) and key macroeconomic series for the G7 countries. By using model averaging techniques, we robustly account for the inherent model uncertainty when dealing with such many potential explanatory variables. As it turns out, the one and only significant measure to explain time-varying oil price persistence is the index of global real economic activity by Kilian (2009). Other variables related to e.g. supply shocks or speculation are, however, insignificant. In line with recent findings, we argue that fundamentals rather than speculation were the drivers of the explosive oil price in the 2000s.     

Oil price shocks and agricultural commodity prices

While the impacts of oil price changes on agricultural commodity markets are of great interest to economists, previous studies do not differentiate oil-specific shocks from aggregate demand shocks. In this paper, we address this issue using a structural VAR analysis. Our findings indicate that the responses of agricultural commodity prices to oil price changes depend greatly on whether they are caused oil supply shocks, aggregate demand shocks or other oil-specific shocks mainly driven by precautionary demand. Oil shocks can explain a minor friction of agricultural commodity price variations before the food crisis in 2006–2008, whereas in post-crisis period their explanatory abilities become much higher. After crisis, the contributions of oil-specific factors to variations in agricultural commodity prices are greater than those of aggregate demand shocks. The results from an alternative SVAR confirm the robustness of our main findings.     

Interpreting the oil risk premium: Do oil price shocks matter?

This paper analyzes the link between the economic fundamentals of the global crude oil markets and the oil futures risk premium. The compensation for risk required by speculators in the oil futures market is modelled as part of the endogenous transmission of oil price shocks. The empirical approach is based on a Structural Vector Autoregressive model of the international market for crude oil. The dynamic response functions show a negative relationship between the risk premium and the real price of oil, triggered by shocks to economic fundamentals. Moreover, the expected returns of a long futures investment are largely explained by a specific shock component related to oil speculators and a shift in the global demand for crude oil.     

Does the source of oil price shocks matter for South African stock returns? A structural VAR approach

In this paper, we investigate the dynamic relationship between different oil price shocks and the South African stock market using a sign restriction structural VAR approach for the period 1973:01 to 2011:07. The results show that for an oil-importing country like South Africa, stock returns only increase with oil prices when global economic activity improves. In response to oil supply shocks and speculative demand shocks, stock returns and the real price of oil move in opposite directions. The analysis of the variance decomposition shows that the oil supply shock contributes more to the variability in real stock prices. The main conclusion is that different oil price shocks affect stock returns differently and policy makers and investors should always consider the source of the shock before implementing a policy and making investment decisions.     

An empirical analysis of the relationship between oil prices and the Chinese macro-economy

Using the quarterly data from the first quarter of 1996 to the fourth quarter of 2014, this paper studies the relationship between oil prices and the Chinese macro-economy. We find output and interest rate respond significantly to oil price shocks. Further analysis reveals that the positive response of output to oil price shocks is attributed to the influences of oil price shocks on exports. The oil price shocks have both longer and deeper effects on the exports of state-owned enterprises than on those of foreign investment enterprises. Moreover, the response of exports to oil price shocks is symmetric. Finally, oil prices are found to be useful for forecasting the China's exports in the periods shorter than about two years.     

Economic impact of oil price shocks on the Turkish economy in the coming decades: A dynamic CGE analysis

As a small open economy, Turkey depends on both imported oil and natural gas, importing almost two-thirds of its primary energy demand. This paper analyzes the economic effects of oil price shocks for Turkey as a small, open oil- and gas-importing country. To analyze the potential long-term effects of oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables of interest, including GDP, consumer price inflation, indirect tax revenues, trade balance, and carbon emissions, we developed TurGEM-D, a dynamic multisectoral general equilibrium model for the Turkish economy. Using TurGEM-D, we analyzed the impact of oil price shocks under three distinct scenarios: reference, high and low oil prices. The simulation results show that these oil prices have very significant effects on macro indicators and carbon emissions in the Turkish economy.     

The effects of oil price shocks on Asian exchange rates: Evidence from quantile regression analysis

This paper investigates the effects of oil price shocks on Asian exchange rates. We employ quantile regression analysis and allow for structural breaks and asymmetry. Our results indicate that positive and negative oil price shocks have asymmetrical effects on exchange rate returns that vary in significance, size, and sign throughout the distribution of exchange rate returns. The impact of oil price shocks is also affected by market conditions (bearish and bullish currency markets). During bullish markets in domestic currencies, (at lower quantiles of currency movements in terms of U.S. dollar exchange rates), rising oil prices cause further appreciation for Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand currencies. During bearish markets in the domestic currencies (at higher quantiles of exchange rate movements in terms of U.S. dollar exchange rates), rising (falling) oil price causes further currency depreciation for Indonesia (Malaysia). Thus, currencies respond differently to oil price shocks under extreme bullish or bearish currency market conditions and the impact of rising or falling oil prices on foreign exchange markets can vary by country and market conditions.