Oil prices,growth, and remittance outflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council

How does a decline in oil prices and its impacts on growth affect remittance outflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries? This paper carries out an empirical analysis of the relationship between oil prices, oil‐ and non‐oil GDP, and remittances outflows from the GCC. The findings of our paper are three folds. First, we find that non‐oil GDP is a key determinant of remittance outflows and that oil GDP is a significant driver of non‐oil GDP in the GCC only in the long term. Second, we document that historically oil prices and remittances tend to broadly move in the same direction but that remittances have been much less volatile than oil prices. An analysis of the past large oil price declines shows that remittance flows to major remittance recipients in Mashreq, Pakistan, and Yemen fell only modestly following large declines in oil prices and recovered quickly in line with oil prices. Finally, we estimate the elasticity of remittance outflows with respect to non‐oil GDP in the GCC using various techniques. Estimates of short‐term elasticity vary between 0.5 and 0.8, while estimates of long‐term elasticity vary between 0.6 and 1.1. We find that construction and government services are two non‐oil GDP components that are strongly associated with remittance outflows.     

Impact of oil price changes on Turkey’s exports

Substantial decline in oil prices observed since the second half of 2014 has brought forward discussions on the impact of oil prices on the external balance. This decline is expected to shift real income from oil exporter countries to oil importer countries. In this context, we study the effect of change in oil prices on Turkey’s exports taking into account the fact that Turkey’s export to oil exporting countries has approximately one-third share in total exports, while export to oil importing countries has a share of two-thirds. At the first step, we analyse the effect of oil prices on economic growth of trade partners of Turkey, where countries are grouped according to their net oil export position. We find that the effect of oil prices on different country groups’ growth is asymmetric. In the second stage, for two groups of countries, we estimate growth-export elasticity through Turkey’s export demand function. Finally, we calculate the net effect of oil prices on exports considering different income effects caused by oil price change on each country groups. Results indicate that the net effect of oil prices on the exports is limited given the current export shares.     

An investigation into the dynamic relationship between international and China’s crude oil prices

This article studies the dynamic relationship between international (WTI, Brent and Dubai) and domestic (Da Qing) crude oil prices in China using threshold cointegration method. We find evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between each pair of international and Da Qing oil prices, favouring the market integration hypothesis. We also estimate asymmetric adjustments under the momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) specification in a TVECM, and the results show that adjustments to eliminate disequilibrium happen faster when oil price spread increases than when it decreases. The long-run and short-run Granger causality tests support the notion that China has influence on the international oil markets. The results imply that China should open up its domestic and imported oil markets, and also establish a well-functioning crude oil futures market, as they are essential for arbitrage and hedging strategies.     

Optimization agricultural production under financial risk of water constraint in the Jordan Valley

Using high-frequency data the co-movements among crude oil prices are analysed in order to address the question of regionalization of the world crude oil market. Time-series econometrics in the form of error-correction modelling is applied for daily crude oil price data covering the time period 1988 to 2004 and in this framework topics like weak and strong exogeneity among three major oil prices – represented by Brent, OPEC and Texas (WTI) – are addressed. The empirical results are that causality is most likely bi-directional among these crude oil prices – and hence rejecting a regionalization hypothesis of the global oil market – and also an influence from the OPEC oil price towards Bent and WTI, which are usually claimed to have a benchmark role.     

The relative effects of crude oil price and exchange rate on petroleum product prices: Evidence from a set of Northern Mediterranean countries

This paper provides a set of empirical evidence from five Northern Mediterranean countries that are subject to similar refinery reference prices regarding the relative sensitivity of crude oil prices and exchange rate on (pre-tax) petroleum product prices. The empirical evidence reveals that a one percent increase in exchange rate (depreciation) increases petroleum product prices less than a one percent increase in crude oil prices does in the long run. In the short run, however, a one percent increase in exchange rate increases petroleum product prices more than a one percent increase in crude oil prices does.     

化石能源价格变化影响分析——基于投入产出价格模型

利用《中国2007年投入产出表》中的数据,运用投入产出价格模型测算我国两个化石能源部门(煤炭开采和洗选业以及石油和天然气开采业)的产品价格分别单独以及同时上涨10%这3种情境下其他产业部门产品价格的变化幅度,在此基础上分析了化石能源价格上涨对其他产业部门产品价格的影响。结果显示:煤炭价格依然是对我国各部门产品价格影响最广的因素;而石油和天然气价格对其他部门产品价格的影响主要集中于个别部门。最后给出相应的政策建议。     

The effect of oil prices on stock prices: fresh evidence from asymmetric causality tests

This article investigates the causal impact of oil prices on stock prices in each G7 market as well as in the world market. An asymmetric causality test developed by Hatemi-J is used for this purpose. Since the underlying data appears to be non-normal with time-varying volatility, we use bootstrap simulations with leverage adjustments in order to produce more reliable critical values than the asymptotic ones. Based on symmetric causality tests, we find no causal effect of oil prices on the stock prices of the world market or any of the G7 countries. However, when we apply an asymmetric causality test, we find that increasing oil prices cause stock prices to rise in the world, the U.S. and Japan while decreasing oil prices cause stock prices to fall in Germany. This may imply that the world, the U.S. and Japanese stock markets consider increases in oil prices as an indicator of good news as this may mean that there is an increase in oil demand due to an expected growth in the economy while the German stock market treats decreasing oil prices as a signal of an expected contraction in the economy.     

Asymmetric evidence of gasoline price responses in France: A Markov-switching approach

It has been documented that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to increases in wholesale prices than they do to decreases in wholesale prices. However, there is little empirical evidence that identifies the link between the pass-through of oil prices to gasoline in different volatility regimes. Using a Markov-switching model on weekly observations of fuel prices from 1990 to 2011, we find that fuel prices respond significantly faster to increases in crude oil prices than to decreases in crude oil prices. However, when volatility is low, the transmittal of a price change from crude oil to retail fuel is higher compared to periods of high volatility. These results provide important information on the behavior of retailers. The findings of this paper therefore provide clues for better understanding the recent dynamics of fuel prices and some policy implications.     

U.S. industry-level returns and oil prices

This paper empirically investigates and provides further support for the oil price effect documented in Driesprong et al. (2008) in the U.S. industry-level returns. We find that oil price predictability is concentrated in a relatively small number of industry-level returns, the relevant measure for a study of the oil effect is percentage change in oil spot prices, and changes in oil futures prices have virtually no prediction power for industry-level returns. With percentage changes in oil spot prices as the predictor, approximately one fifth of industry returns are oil-predictable. We detect a two trading weeks delay in reaction to oil price changes which is consistent with the Hong and Stein (1996) underreaction hypothesis. These results are robust to various alternative specifications, and are shown to be unrelated to time-varying risk premia. Moreover, we demonstrate that trading strategies based on the oil effect generate superior gains in comparison with buy-and-hold strategy in the presence of reasonable trading costs.     

谈中国石油进口定价权缺失及对策建议

随着中国经济的迅速发展,石油进口量不断攀升,而中国在国际石油市场上微乎其微的价格话语权与自身石油大买家的地位极不相称。石油进口不可避免地面临着国际石油市场价格动荡局面下的价格风险以及相对进口价格较高的被动局面。什么原因导致了中国石油进口价格的困境,如何解决这一问题成为中国石油进口面临的一个重要课题。针对国内石油市场现状,从石油进口成本出发,分析了中国石油进口定价权缺失的原因,并探讨了相应对策。     

Do Energy Prices Affect U.S. Investor Sentiment?

The current literature has examined the effect of investor sentiment on energy prices, but no study ever has explored the validity of the reverse question. Therefore, this article explore whether energy prices (i.e., crude oil and natural gas prices) affect U.S. investor sentiment, using the methodology of quantile regression. The empirical results document that controlling for a number of U.S. macroeconomic and financial factors, there exists a statistically significant association between oil and natural gas prices and investor sentiment. However, only natural gas prices appear to retain their statistical significance over the majority of quantiles. These findings received robust support under alternative measures of the investor sentiment index.     

Petroleum spreads and the term structure of futures prices

We employ the term structure of gasoline and heating oil prices, proxied by convenience yields, to explain the variation in the spread between the prices of gasoline and crude oil and the prices of heating oil and crude oil. We demonstrate that the marginal convenience yields in the gasoline and heating oil markets explained much of the variation in the spreads between 1986 and 1999. The evidence indicates the importance of a disaggregated treatment of the term structure of prices: the convenience yield is found to explain a substantially higher amount of the variation in the spread when it is decomposed by maturity, even after controls for seasonality and inventory levels are implemented. These findings support the notion that the futures term structure contains information beyond what can be garnered via obvious or easily available proxies of current supply and demand. The findings are also supported in an alternate specification that tests for the origins of information spillover (leadership) between the commodities: it is demonstrated that decomposed convenience yields explain a substantial portion of the volatility spillover from the gasoline and heating oil markets to the crude market.     

Oil price effects over individual Portuguese stock returns

During the last decades, the world energy dependence increased significantly. Understanding how companies depend on oil prices is essential, especially for countries highly dependent or importers. The work intends to investigate the relationship between oil price changes and Portuguese listed companies’ returns. Using the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model, we conclude that nearly 20 % of the companies are significantly affected by oil prices, finding also evidence that these effects are asymmetric, depending on the company’s current situation in the market (result attributed to the lack of liquidity and the small number of firms included within the sample). There exists some differences among economic sectors in the way they are impacted by oil price changes, although not so much significant. The results show that the bigger the company, the higher the probability of being significantly affected by oil price changes. Results suggest that lagged oil price positive shocks increase Portuguese companies’ returns, by opposition to the current oil price change. Findings highlight the key role played by aggregate demand-side oil price shocks over the financial economic activity, showing sector and individual companies’ differences, thus inducing the possibility of results being highly dependent over the economic context faced by the country under analysis, that firms are more sensitive to oil prices when the equity market is busiest and that oil price increases affect companies returns in a negative way, but price decreases cause more positive than negative effects over company returns.     

OIL PRICE SHOCKS AND STOCK MARKET BOOMS IN AN OIL EXPORTING COUNTRY

This paper analyses the effects of oil price shocks on stock returns in Norway, an oil-exporting country, highlighting the transmission channels of oil prices for macroeconomic behaviour. To capture the interaction between the different variables, stock returns are incorporated into a structural VAR model. I find that following a 10% increase in oil prices, stock returns increase by 2.5%, after which the effect gradually dies out. The results are robust to different (linear and non-linear) transformations of oil prices. The effects on the other variables are more modest. However, all variables indicate that the Norwegian economy responds to higher oil prices by increasing aggregate wealth and demand. The results also emphasize the role of other shocks; monetary policy shocks in particular, as important driving forces behind stock price variability in the short term.     

Coping with a decline in world energy prices: Macroeconomic and income distribution effects in Thailand

This paper analyzes the effects of a short-run decline in world oil prices in Thailand. The outcomes of two policy responses are explored. What happens if — under a liberal policy - domestic prices follow world prices down in the short run and back up in the medium run? And what happens if — under a moderate policy - domestic prices are kept pretty much the same in both the short and medium runs? The SIAM2 Model tracked the effect of these policies on economic growth, on the resource balance, and on employment and the distribution of income. Over a 10-year horizon, growth is about the same under the two policies, though with differences for some periods and sectors. Nor is there much difference between the two policies in their effect on employment and income distribution — though the formal and informal sectors perform differently in different subperiods. The most important difference is in the resource balance. Under the liberal policy, the current account balance changes little, but it improves rapidly under the moderate policy.     

国际油价波动对经济增长的影响——基于中国的实证分析

基于1990年1月至2009年3月的月度数据,本文实证分析了我国经济增长与国际石油价格之间的长期变动关系,其特点在于,采用稳健性较强的T-Y因果检验来分析油价与经济增长的Granger因果关系,同时,运用非对称协整技术以考察油价与经济增长之间的非线性关系。研究发现：①长期中油价是我国经济增长的单向Granger原因;②油价与我国经济增长之间存在非对称协整关系,油价上涨对经济活动的负面影响大于油价下跌的积极影响。基于中国经济运行的实际,本文还分析了实证结果背后的原因,并提出当前国际金融危机背景下,油价呈下跌趋势,需抓住有利时机,动用外汇储备,大力购入石油资源,建立起石油战略储备;在经济复苏、油价上涨时,可以启动石油战略储备来减少石油供应冲击,从而有助于及时保证我国经济平稳快速增长的政策建议。     

Nonlinear effects of oil shocks on stock returns: a Markov-switching approach

Using Markov-switching models, we investigate whether oil price shocks have nonlinear effects on stock returns. Empirical evidence from a set of international stock indexes suggests that an increase in oil prices has a negative and significant impact on stock prices in one state of the economy, whereas this effect is significantly dampened in another state of the economy. Furthermore, it is shown that changes in oil prices or in oil price volatility do not lead to a higher probability of switching between regimes.     

国际石油价格与通货膨胀的溢出效应及动态相关性

国际石油价格大幅波动不可避免地给全球经济带来了一定程度的冲击和影响。文章采用向量自回归、多元GARCH-BEKK和DCC-GARCH模型对中美两国通货膨胀与国际石油价格之间的均值溢出效应、波动溢出效应及动态相关关系进行了实证检验。检验结果表明,国际石油价格与中国通货膨胀不存在任何方向的均值和波动溢出效应,美国通货膨胀与国际油价则存在双向显著的均值和波动溢出效应;中国通货膨胀与国际油价的动态相关关系显著弱于美国,不易受到国际油价的冲击和影响。从整体上看,当前中国通货膨胀与国际石油价格的关联性并不显著,但随着我国石油消费对进口依赖程度的不断提高,石油安全问题在可预见的未来将成为中国需要应对的一个现实挑战。因此,相关部门应及早采取有效措施,应对未来石油冲击对宏观经济的影响。     

Oil price risk in the Spanish stock market: An industry perspective

This study examines the sensitivity of the Spanish stock market at the industry level to movements in oil prices over the period 1993–2010, paying special attention to the presence of endogenously determined structural changes in the relationship between oil price changes and industry equity returns. The empirical results show that the degree of oil price exposure of Spanish industries is rather limited, although significant differences are found across industries. The oil price sensitivity is very weak in the 1990s, a period of fairly stable and low oil prices. Instead, the link between crude oil and stock prices seems to have increased during the 2000s, becoming primarily positive. This evidence highlights the key role played by aggregate demand-side oil price shocks associated with the global real economic activity in the link between oil price fluctuations and the Spanish stock market.