Oil price uncertainty in Canada

Bernanke [Bernanke, Ben S. Irreversibility, uncertainty, and cyclical investment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 (1983), 85–106.] shows how uncertainty about energy prices may induce optimizing firms to postpone investment decisions, thereby leading to a decline in aggregate output. Elder and Serletis (Elder, John and Serletis, Apostolos. Oil price uncertainty. http://ssrn.com/abstract=908675 (2009).] find empirical evidence that uncertainty about oil prices has tended to depress investment in the United States. In this paper we assess the robustness of these results by investigating the effects of oil price uncertainty in Canada. Our results are remarkably similar to existing results for the United States, providing additional evidence that uncertainty about oil prices may provide another explanation for why the sharp oil price declines of 1985 failed to produce rapid output growth. Impulse-response analysis suggests that uncertainty about oil prices may tend to reinforce the negative response of output to positive oil shocks.     

Oil price uncertainty and unemployment

In this study, we empirically search the effects of oil price uncertainty and oil price shocks on U.S. unemployment rate using a GARCH-in-mean VAR model for the period 1974:q2–2017:q4. Based on our findings, we show that oil price uncertainty significantly increases unemployment rate in the U.S. economy. Likewise, our impulse-response analysis affirms that a positive oil price shock increases unemployment while the response of unemployment to a negative oil price shock is negative. Moreover, we reveal that unemployment rate reacts to positive and negative shocks asymmetrically. More specifically, the response of unemployment to negative oil price shocks is negative and slighter in size. Besides, oil price uncertainty is found to magnify the rise in the U.S. unemployment rate. These findings are in keeping with the real options theory which reveals that the uncertainty about goods' prices leads firms to postpone or abandon their production and investment and they seem to be robust to the use of different real oil price measures.     

Consumers' perceptions regarding tradeoffs between food and fuel expenditures: A case study of U.S. and Belgian fuel users

Biofuels have been suggested as a sustainable alternative to fossil-based fuels, but when produced with inputs traditionally used as food and feed grain, the production of biofuels has contributed to price increases in the food sector. In the fall of 2006, a survey was administered to compare consumer perceptions regarding the tradeoff between renewable fuels and food in the United States (U.S.) (n = 242) and Belgium (n = 363). Results show that respondents in both countries prefer lower food prices to lower fuel prices (67.6% in the U.S. and 78.9% in Belgium). A logit model was estimated to determine which variables impacted whether a consumer favored policies that lower fuel prices at the cost of higher food prices. While the sample of Belgian respondents appeared to realize that lower fuel prices eventually had to come at the cost of higher food prices, the sample of U.S. respondents felt domestic agriculture could provide some low-cost, environmentally friendly alternatives with little impact on food prices. Accessible public transportation in Belgium acted as an important fuel saving strategy in that country and led respondents to emphasize food price decreases over fuel price decreases. Also, respondents with heightened awareness towards the environment recognized that the expansion of renewable fuels may need to come at the cost of higher food prices. These attitudes were similar in both countries. Finally, in both countries older respondents placed more importance on lower food prices than lower fuel prices.     

Tight oil,real WTI prices and U.S. stock returns

Following the adoption of new techniques of shale and fracking by U.S. oil companies, a structural vector autoregression model (SVAR) complements studies on why Brent and WTI started to diverge around early-2011. Using monthly data from 2000 to 2018, we decompose oil supply into: world oil (excluding U.S.), U.S. conventional (non-tight) oil and U.S. tight oil. We examine the variance decomposition of stock returns for the aggregate market (S&P 500), the S&P Energy sector and Chevron and Exxon Mobil oil companies, and we further identify differences between two subsamples from 2000 to 2010 and 2011 to 2018, respectively. We find that supply considerations (especially due to tight oil) become more important in the subsample after 2011, not only for individual oil companies but also for the aggregate market and energy sector: Supply shocks due to tight oil explain in our benchmark model between 29% (S&P 500) and 31% (S&P Energy) of the variance in stock returns after 24 months and between 28% and 29% for oil companies. None of these are statistically significant in the pre-2011 subsample. Among impulse responses, tight oil production responds positively to disruptions in world oil, and U.S. stock returns respond positively to oil price shocks and respond negatively to tight oil shocks which is a further finding while being consistent with the literature. Copula modeling uncovers stronger tail dependences in the second subsample for the interactions during downturns and upturns among global demand, crude oil prices and stock markets.     

Do oil prices respond to real interest rates?

We show that the robustness of an inverse relationship between the real interest rate and real oil price depends crucially on how the real interest rate is calculated, and the time-frame of the sample. Consistent with earlier studies, we find that the oil price falls with an unexpected rise in either U.S. or international ex-ante real interest rates. When the ex-post real interest rate is used, the oil price only falls with rises to short-term rates (3 months or less). Additionally, the response of the oil price to long-term ex-ante real interest rates must include the period through the mid-2000s for the inverse relationship to appear. In contrast, the oil price consistently falls with unexpected rises in short-term real interest rates throughout the entire sample. We draw two conclusions from the results. The first is that the oil price is consistently responsive to short-term U.S. and international real interest rates, underlying the importance of storage. Second, oil prices have become more responsive to long-term real interest rates over time.     

Oil prices and global factor macroeconomic variables

This paper investigates the relationship between oil prices, global industrial production, prices, central bank policy interest rate and monetary aggregate with a global factor-augmented error correction model. We confirm the following stylized relationships: i) at global level, money, industrial production and prices are cointegrated; ii) positive innovation in global oil price is connected with global interest rate tightening; iii) positive innovation in global money, price level and industrial production is connected with an increase in oil prices; iv) positive innovations in global interest rate are associated with a decline in oil prices; and v) the U.S., Euro area and China are the main drivers of global macroeconomic factors.     

The use of nonlinear hedging strategies by US oil producers: Motivations and implications

This paper investigates the motivations and value effect of nonlinear hedges. Using a new dataset on the hedging activities of 150 U.S. oil producers, we present empirical evidence that nonlinear hedging strategies are motivated by sensitivities of firm's investment expenditures and revenues to oil price fluctuations, and quantity–price correlation. We also find a non–monotonic relationship between the use of nonlinear hedges and financial constraints. Investment opportunities, production uncertainty, and changes in oil prices and volatilities also play a significant role in hedging strategy choice. Controlling for bias related to omitted variables and self–selection in the estimation of marginal treatment effects of hedging strategy choice, we find that oil producers with a higher propensity to use pure nonlinear hedging strategies tend to have higher marginal firm value.     

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.     

The asymmetry of gasoline prices: fresh evidence from an error correction model for U.K. and U.S.A.

An error correction model was fitted to monthly data on net retail gasoline prices for the U.K. and the U.S.A. over the period January 1980–June 1996 in order to examine the short-run response of gasoline prices to changes in crude oil costs and exchange rate. The hypothesis of a symmetric response by gasoline station owners to crude oil price rises and falls was rejected by the data for both the U.K. and the U.S.A. A similar hypothesis in regard to the exchange rate was also rejected by the data. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons. Ltd.     

Role of oil price shocks on macroeconomic activities: An SVAR approach to the Malaysian economy and monetary responses

This study examines the impact of oil price uncertainty on Malaysian macroeconomic activities and monetary responses. We use a structural VAR (SVAR) model based on monthly data over the period 1986−2009. The EGARCH model estimates show an important asymmetric effect of oil price shocks on the conditional oil price volatility. Dynamic impulse response functions obtained from the SVAR model show a prolonged dampening effect of oil price volatility shock on Malaysian industrial production. We also find that levels of Consumer Price Index (CPI) decline with a positive shock to oil price uncertainty. This is the result of negative demand shock due to the postponement of consumption of big ticket items by individuals, households and other sectors of the economy. We also found that the Malaysian central bank adopts an expansionary monetary policy in response to oil price uncertainty. Variance decomposition analysis reconfirms that volatility in the oil price is the second most important factor to explain the variance of industrial production after its own shocks. These results shed some light on how the central bank of Malaysia can use controlling mechanisms to stabilize aggregate output and price level.     

The importance of managerial ability on crude oil price uncertainty-firm performance relationship

This paper investigates the effect of crude oil price uncertainty on firm performance and how the managerial ability impacts on this relationship. Using a large sample of 13,610 U.S firms from 1983 to 2016, we reveal two main findings. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find strong evidence for a negative effect of crude oil price uncertainty on firm performance at both aggregate market and sectoral levels. However, managerial ability helps firms dampen a significant proportion (approximately 20%–50%) of the negative effect. These findings are consistent in several robustness tests.     

Does the U.S. economic policy uncertainty connect financial markets? Evidence from oil and commodity currencies

We provide novel insight to the emerging literature on the role of U.S. monetary policy as a driver of a global financial cycle by examining the possible causal effect of U.S. economic policy uncertainty on the connectedness of crude oil and currency markets, using a sample of commodity currencies from advanced and emerging nations. A battery of linear and nonlinear Granger-based causality tests indicate the presence of a causal relationship between economic policy uncertainty and the connectedness of oil and currency markets, particularly at low frequencies and more significantly after the outburst of the global financial crisis. While crude oil generally serves as a net transmitter of shocks to currencies across all frequency bands, the spillover effects from oil are largely concentrated towards the G10 currencies of Australian and New Zealand dollar that are often used as investment currencies in global carry trade strategies. Overall, our findings suggest the presence of a significant pass-through effect of economic policy uncertainty via oil prices, spilling over to the currency market, in line with the emerging evidence that the monetary policy by the U.S. Fed serves as a major driver of a global financial cycle that describes patterns in global capital flows, credit activity and asset prices across financial markets.     

U.S. stock returns and oil prices: The tale from daily data and the 2008–2009 financial crisis

Using daily data from January 1999 to December 2011, we examine U.S. stock returns (S&P 500, Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000) based on a wide range of information, including equity VIX volatility, inflation expectations, interest rates, gold prices, and the USD/Euro exchange rate. The focus is on oil price returns, which have been previously found to exert mostly negative effects on U.S. stock returns. Identifying the crisis of 2008–2009 as a significant period of economic contraction and subsequent “recovery”, we check the stability of the stock-oil relationship by GARCH and MGARCH-DCC models. Prior to the financial crisis, stock returns are slightly (negatively) affected by oil prices and by the USD/Euro. For the subsample of mid-2009 onwards, however, stock returns are positively affected by oil prices and a weaker USD/Euro. As with inflation expectations, we interpret these findings as U.S. stocks responding positively to expectations of recovery worldwide. Our proposed explanation is due to the changing correlation between stock markets and oil, either by standard GARCH models or by MGARCH-DCC models allowing the implied correlation to vary over time.     

Marcellus Shale and structural breaks in oil and gas markets: The case of Pennsylvania

This paper first documents the rapid increase in Pennsylvania's share of U.S. natural gas production from ongoing development of the Marcellus Shale formation. It does stand to reason that the Marcellus Shale boom has made Pennsylvania natural gas production far more influential on aggregate oil and gas markets than before, but does such a differential effect appear in the data? Can we say, unequivocally, that the Marcellus Shale boom caused Pennsylvania's natural gas output to move the needle on national natural gas prices more so than before the boom occurred? These questions are investigated utilizing a threshold VAR model based on Tsay's (1998) test for unknown break points to investigate how, if at all, Pennsylvania's rapidly growing share of national natural gas production has altered the linkages between Pennsylvania's natural gas production and overall oil and gas prices. Findings indicate a structural break in the impact of Pennsylvania's natural gas production on natural gas prices occurring in early 2009, a date that matches well with the onset of the state's rapid production growth. Pre-break, there is minimal evidence that changes in Pennsylvania's production had a significant effect on the aggregate U.S. natural gas market; but when post-break data is included, an increase in Pennsylvania's production leads to a lower average national price of natural gas, which is transitory and lasts for only a few months. These results provide statistical support to the notion that Pennsylvania has become a substantial component of the U.S. natural gas market at least in the short-run.     

Are the macroeconomic effects of oil price shock symmetric?: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive approach

This paper aims to examine the asymmetric effect of oil price shocks on real economic activity in the U.S. within the context of a nonlinear Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) model. By employing simulation methods, we trace the effects of positive and negative oil price shocks on the macroeconomic variables through the Impulse Response Function (IRF). It is found that the negative impacts of higher oil prices are larger than the positive effects of lower oil prices. And the asymmetric effects are more evident when the oil price shocks are larger. The results are robust to different lag specification and choice of factors.     

Energy price uncertainty, energy intensity and firm investment

This paper examines the effect of energy price uncertainty on firm-level investment. An error correction model of capital stock adjustment is estimated with data on U.S. manufacturing firms. Higher energy price uncertainty is found to make firms more cautious by reducing the responsiveness of investment to sales growth. The result is robust to consideration of energy intensity by industry. The effect is greater for high growth firms. It must be emphasized that the direct effect of uncertainty is not estimated. Conditional variance of energy price is obtained from a GARCH model. Findings suggest that stability in energy prices would be conducive to greater stability in firm-level investment.     

Oil prices and stock markets: Does the effect of uncertainty change over time?

This paper investigates empirical marginal effects of uncertainty measured by conditional variance of the stock and crude oil prices on their returns using stock index prices for U.S., Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong over the period 1996–2015. A time-varying parameter model with a dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) bivariate GARCH-in-Mean specification is considered to investigate time-varying marginal effects of uncertainty on the stock and crude oil returns. The empirical findings show that there exist significant negative time-varying effects of uncertainty on the returns over some sub-periods.     

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.     

Exogenous shocks and the spillover effects between uncertainty and oil price

This paper evaluates the information spillover between equity-related uncertainty and the oil price before and after the 2008 global financial crisis, and the effects of exogenous shocks on the pattern of information spillover. In particular, we investigate mean and volatility spillovers between uncertainty and the oil price with and without exogenous shocks by using a bivariate EGARCH model. There are two main findings in our paper. First, the evidence ensures significant information transmission between equity-related uncertainty and the oil price, and shows remarkable differences in transmission patterns before and after the crisis. Second, the results show that exogenous shocks can intensify information transmission between oil prices and uncertainty in terms of both the mean and volatility spillover effects. Moreover, exogenous shocks exhibit direct spillover effects on oil prices.     

Oil prices,fundamentals and expectations

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between oil prices, traditional fundamentals and expectations. Informational frictions may force a wedge between oil prices and supply and/or demand shocks, especially during periods of elevated risk aversion and uncertainty. In such a context, expectations can be a key driver of oil price movements and their impact can vary over time. Overall, we find that both traditional oil fundamentals and forward-looking expectations matter for oil prices. Our findings show that the real price of oil responds differently to expectations shocks of business leaders, consumers and aggregate markets. Our TVP-VAR approach provides evidence that business leaders' expectations play an important role in terms of oil price fluctuations and the impact is stronger in periods of elevated global oil demand. In terms of traditional oil market fundamentals, we find that oil prices have been significantly affected by the recent US shale oil boom. Moreover, global oil demand had a positive impact upon oil prices, especially from the mid-2000s. Several alternative model specifications prove the robustness of our analysis.