Search Results
Journal Article
The Russian Invasion, Oil and Gasoline Prices, and Recession
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has substantially increased commodity prices, increasing risk to global economic activity.
Working Paper
Forecasts of inflation and interest rates in no-arbitrage affine models
In this paper, we examine the forecasting ability of an affine term structure framework that jointly models the markets for Treasuries, inflation-protected securities, inflation derivatives, and oil future prices based on no-arbitrage restrictions across these markets. On the methodological side, we propose a novel way of incorporating information from these markets into an affine model. On the empirical side, two main findings emerge from our analysis. First, incorporating information from inflation options can often produce more accurate inflation forecasts than those based on the Survey of ...
Discussion Paper
Putting the Current Oil Price Collapse into Historical Perspective
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in late January, oil prices have fallen sharply. In this post, we compare recent price declines with those seen in previous oil price collapses, focusing on the drivers of such episodes. In order to do that, we break oil price shocks down into demand and supply components, applying the methodology behind the New York Fed’s weekly Oil Price Dynamics Report.
Discussion Paper
The Perplexing Co-Movement of the Dollar and Oil Prices
Oil prices and the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the euro have often moved together over the past decade or so, but it is not at all clear why they should. The standard interpretation of oil price movements as a response to global oil supply and demand shifts makes it unlikely that the correlation stems from the dollar’s effect on oil prices. In addition, the notorious difficulty in predicting currency moves makes it hard to believe that oil prices dictate the dollar’s value. Improbability aside, however, in this blog post we document the tendency for the value of the dollar to ...
Discussion Paper
Oil Prices, Global Demand Expectations, and Near-Term Global Inflation
Oil prices have increased by nearly 60 percent since the summer of 2020, coinciding with an upward trend in global inflation. If higher oil prices are the result of constrained supply, then this could pose some stagflation risks to the growth outlook—a concern reflected in a June Financial Times article, “Why OPEC Matters.” In this post, we utilize the demand and supply decomposition from the New York Fed’s Oil Price Dynamics Report to argue that most of the oil price increase over the past year or so has reflected improving global demand expectations. We then illustrate what these ...
Working Paper
Fuel subsidies, the oil market and the world economy
This paper studies the e ffects of oil producing countries' fuel subsidies on the oil market and the world economy. We identify 24 oil producing countries with fuel subsidies where retail fuel prices are about 34 percent of the world price. We construct a two-country model where one country represents the oil-exporting subsidizers and the second the oil-importing bloc, and calibrate the model to match recent data. We find that the removal of subsidies would reduce the world price of oil by six percent. The removal of subsidies is unambiguously welfare enhancing for the oil-importing ...
Journal Article
Oil Shocks when Interest Rates Are at the Zero Lower Bound
New evidence suggests that rising oil prices associated with declining oil supply slow economic activities less when interest rates are constrained at the zero lower bound. Moreover, these oil price spikes can even increase overall output. Evidence points to the following explanation. An oil supply shock raises inflation in all periods, but the nominal interest rate does not react under the zero lower bound, so the shock reduces the real interest rate, stimulating demand in the economy.
Discussion Paper
How Could Oil Price and Policy Rate Hikes Affect the Near-Term Inflation Outlook?
Since the start of the year, oil prices have risen sharply owing to worsening expectations regarding global oil supply. We’ve also had an acceleration of inflation in the United States and the euro area, as well as a sharp steepening of the expected paths of policy rates in both economies. These factors, combined with the potential for a slowdown in growth, have made the inflation outlook quite uncertain. In this post, we combine the demand and supply oil price decomposition from the New York Fed’s Oil Price Dynamics Report with yield curve data to quantify the likely path of inflation in ...