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The Response of Business Fixed Investment to Changes in Energy Prices: A Test of Some Hypotheses About the Transmission of Energy Price Shocks

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  • Edelstein, Paul
  • Kilian, Lutz

Abstract

Changes in firms’ investment expenditures are considered one of the primary channels through which energy price shocks are transmitted to the economy. It is widely believed that the response of business fixed investment to energy price increases differs from its response to energy price decreases. We show that the apparent asymmetry in the estimated responses of business fixed investment in equipment and structures cannot be reconciled with standard theoretical explanations of asymmetric responses. Rather this evidence is an artifact (1) of the aggregation of mining-related expenditures by the oil, natural gas, and coal mining industry and all other expenditures, and (2) of ignoring an exogenous shift in investment caused by the 1986 Tax Reform Act. After controlling for these factors, formal statistical tests are unable to reject the assumption of symmetric responses to energy price shocks for all components of investment in structures. For nonresidential equipment there is weak statistical evidence of classical asymmetries in some components, but not in the aggregate. Once symmetry is imposed and mining-related expenditures are excluded, the estimated response of business fixed investment in equipment and structures tends to be small and mostly statistically insignificant. Historical decompositions show that energy price shocks have played a minor role in driving fluctuations in nonresidential fixed investment other than investment in mining. Our conclusions are largely robust to defining energy price shocks in terms of percent changes, large percent changes or net percent changes of energy prices; they are also robust to using alternative measures of energy prices and to weighting energy prices by the energy share in value added.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6507.

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Date of creation: Oct 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6507

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Keywords: 1986 Tax Reform Act; Asymmetric responses; Equipment; Nonresidential fixed investment; Oil price shocks; Structures;

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References

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  1. Hamilton, James D., 1996. "This is what happened to the oil price-macroeconomy relationship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 215-220, October.
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  11. Hamilton, James D, 1988. "A Neoclassical Model of Unemployment and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 593-617, June.
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  14. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-69, June.
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  16. Edelstein, Paul & Kilian, Lutz, 2007. "Retail Energy Prices and Consumer Expenditures," CEPR Discussion Papers 6255, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Kilian, Lutz, 2009. "Oil Price Shocks, Monetary Policy and Stagflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7324, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. Javier Ordóñez & Hector Sala & José I. Silva, 2010. "Oil price shocks and labor market fluctuations," Working Papers wpdea1005, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
  3. Elder, John & Serletis, Apostolos, 2009. "Oil price uncertainty in Canada," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 852-856, November.
  4. Kilian, Lutz, 2007. "The Economic Effects of Energy Price Shocks," CEPR Discussion Papers 6559, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  5. Lutz Kilian & Robert Vigfusson, 2009. "Pitfalls in estimating asymmetric effects of energy price shocks," International Finance Discussion Papers 970, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  6. Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca, 2008. "The impact of oil price shocks: Evidence from the industries of six OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3095-3108, November.
  7. Ratti, Ronald A. & Seol, Youn & Yoon, Kyung Hwan, 2011. "Relative energy price and investment by European firms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 721-731, September.
  8. C. Baumeister & G. Peersman, 2008. "Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the US Economy," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 08/515, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  9. Yoon, Kyung Hwan & Ratti, Ronald A., 2011. "Energy price uncertainty, energy intensity and firm investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 67-78, January.
  10. Marc Gronwald, 2009. "Investigating the U.S. Oil-Macroeconomy Nexus using Rolling Impulse Responses," CESifo Working Paper Series 2702, CESifo Group Munich.
  11. Chai, Jian & Guo, Ju-E. & Meng, Lei & Wang, Shou-Yang, 2011. "Exploring the core factors and its dynamic effects on oil price: An application on path analysis and BVAR-TVP model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 8022-8036.
  12. Edelstein, Paul & Kilian, Lutz, 2007. "Retail Energy Prices and Consumer Expenditures," CEPR Discussion Papers 6255, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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