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Journal Article
Gasoline Prices Unlikely to Bring Down Inflation in 2023
Gasoline prices can influence inflation both directly (by changing prices at the pump) and indirectly (by shaping consumers’ inflation expectations). Through these channels, gasoline prices have played an important role in the run-up and recent decline in inflation. Although gasoline prices have declined from their all-time highs, they are expected to remain relatively stable in 2023. As a result, gasoline prices are unlikely to deliver further reductions in either inflation or inflation expectations this year.
Journal Article
The Response of U.S. Investment to Oil Price Shocks: Does the Shale Boom Matter?
After an unprecedented decline from 2014 to 2016, the real price of oil more than doubled, renewing interest in the effects of oil price fluctuations on the U.S. economy. The oil sector has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy over the past decade, and total U.S. business fixed investment appears to have followed oil investment?s pattern in recent years. This positive correlation between oil prices and U.S. investment growth may be related to the surge in U.S. oil production known as the shale boom. {{p}} Nida ak?r Melek explores the effect of unexpected oil price changes (or ...
Journal Article
Negative Sentiment toward Spending and Declining Real Incomes May Meaningfully Lower Consumption
Despite a contraction in real GDP in the first half of 2022, consumer spending has remained resilient. We examine a set of factors that have historically affected consumption growth and find that excess savings have boosted consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as excess savings decline and economic relationships normalize, negative sentiment toward spending and declining real incomes may meaningfully lower consumption.
Journal Article
What could lower prices mean for U.S. oil production?
U.S. oil and natural gas production has grown significantly since 2005, reflecting a move toward shale gas and tight oil extraction. Since 2011, the most productive tight oil and shale gas fields accounted for nearly all of the growth in U.S. energy production, due largely to extensive use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. High energy prices made these costly technologies profitable to apply on a large scale. However, oil prices and rig counts declined sharply in 2014, calling into question whether the boom in U.S. oil production can continue. Nida ak?r Melek examines how ...
Journal Article
Lifting the U.S. Crude Oil Export Ban: Prospects for Increasing Oil Market Efficiency
Repealing the U.S. ban on crude oil exports led to increased trade and efficiency in the oil market.
Journal Article
The Evolving Link between Oil Prices and U.S. Consumer Spending
Oil prices have fluctuated widely since the 1970s. Historically, consumers have tended to increase spending on non-oil goods and services when oil prices decline and cut back on such spending when oil prices rise. However, this relationship may have changed more recently. The U.S. oil sector has increased in importance in the last decade, and consequently the United States has become less reliant on oil imports. Moreover, gasoline expenditures have fallen as a share of households’ budgets. As a result, price swings may no longer have the same effect on U.S. consumption.Nida Çakır Melek ...
Working Paper
The Income Share of Energy and Substitution: A Macroeconomic Approach
As the atmospheric concentration of CO2 emissions has grown to record levels, callshave grown for governments to make steeper emissions cuts, requiring to reduce an economy’s use of fossil energy dramatically. Meanwhile, in the U.S., fossil energy still met 80percent of the total energy demand as of 2019. This paper examines U.S. energy dependence, measured by its factor share, using a simple neoclassical framework in a systematicway. We find that with empirically plausible differences in substitution elasticities, particularly with a time-varying substitution elasticity between equipment ...
Journal Article
Evaluating a year of oil price volatility
Troy Davig, Nida ak?r Melek, Jun Nie, Lee Smith, and Didem Tzemen find changes in expectations of future oil supply relative to demand are the main drivers of the recent oil price decline.
Working Paper
The U.S. Shale Oil Boom, the Oil Export Ban, and the Economy: A General Equilibrium Analysis Nida
This paper examines the e ects of the U.S. shale oil boom in a two-country DSGE model where countries produce crude oil, re ned oil products, and a non-oil good. The model in- {{p}} corporates di erent types of crude oil that are imperfect substitutes for each other as inputs into the re ning sector. The model is calibrated to match oil market and macroeconomic data for the U.S. and the rest of the world (ROW). {{p}} We investigate the implications of a signicant {{p}} increase in U.S. light crude oil production similar to the shale oil boom. Consistent with the data, our model predicts that ...