Recently developed structural models of the global crude oil market imply that the surge in the real price of oil between mid-2003 and mid-2008 was driven by repeated positive shocks to the demand for all industrial commodities, reflecting unexpectedly high growth mainly in emerging Asia. This note evaluates this proposition using an alternative data source and a different econometric methodology. Rather than inferring demand shocks from an econometric model, we utilize a direct measure of global demand shocks based on revisions of professional real GDP growth forecasts. We show that recent forecast surprises were associated primarily with unexpected growth in emerging economies (and to a lesser extent in Japan), that markets were repeatedly surprised by the strength of this growth, that these surprises were associated with a hump-shaped response of the real price of oil that reaches its peak after 12 to 16 months, and that news about global growth predict much of the surge in the real price of oil from mid-2003 until mid-2008 and much of its subsequent decline.
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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
7265.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Other Model Applications Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Lutz Kilian & Alessandro Rebucci & Nikola Spatafora, 2007.
"Oil Shocks and External Balances,"
Working Papers
562, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
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