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Do Financial Investors Destabilize the Oil Price?

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  • M. J. LOMBARDI
  • I. VAN ROBAYS

    ()

Abstract

We assess whether and to what extent nancial activity in the oil futures markets has contributed to destabilize oil prices in recent years. We de ne a destabilizing nancial shock as a shift in oil prices that is not related to current and expected fun- damentals, and thereby distorts e¢ cient pricing in the oil market. Using a structural VAR model identi ed with sign restrictions, we disentangle this non-fundamental - nancial shock from fundamental shocks to oil supply and demand to determine their relative importance. We nd that shocks to oil demand and supply remain the main drivers of oil price swings. Financial investors in the futures market can however destabilize oil spot prices, although only in the short run. Moreover, nancial ac- tivity appears to have exacerbated gyrations in the oil market over the past decade, particularly in 2007-2009.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in its series Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium with number 11/760.

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Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:11/760

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Keywords: Oil price; Speculation; Structural VAR; Sign restrictions.;

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References

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  1. Gert Peersman & Christiane Baumeister, 2009. "Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the US Economy," 2009 Meeting Papers 171, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  2. Miller, J. Isaac & Ratti, Ronald A., 2009. "Crude oil and stock markets: Stability, instability, and bubbles," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 559-568, July.
  3. G. Peersman & I. Van Robays, 2009. "Cross-Country Differences in the Effects of Oil Shocks," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 09/629, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  4. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207.
  5. Pindyck, Robert S., 1990. "Inventories and the short-run dynamics of commodity prices," Working papers 3133-90., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  6. Ron Alquist & Lutz Kilian, 2010. "What do we learn from the price of crude oil futures?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 539-573.
  7. Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders, 2010. "The Impact of Index and Swap Funds on Commodity Futures Markets: Preliminary Results," OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers 27, OECD Publishing.
  8. Alessio Anzuini & Marco J. Lombardi & Patrizio Pagano, 2012. "The impact of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 851, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  9. Gert Peersman & Ine Van Robays, 2009. "Oil and the Euro area economy," Economic Policy, CEPR & CES & MSH, vol. 24, pages 603-651, October.
  10. Renee Fry & Adrian Pagan, 2010. "Sign Restrictions in Structural Vector Autoregressions: A Critical Review," NCER Working Paper Series 57, National Centre for Econometric Research.
  11. Lutz Kilian & Daniel P. Murphy, 2012. "Why Agnostic Sign Restrictions Are Not Enough: Understanding The Dynamics Of Oil Market Var Models," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1166-1188, October.
  12. Andrei Shleifer ad Robert W. Vishny, 1995. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1725, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  13. Kilian, Lutz & Murphy, Dan, 2010. "The Role of Inventories and Speculative Trading in the Global Market for Crude Oil," CEPR Discussion Papers 7753, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  14. Acharya, Viral V. & Lochstoer, Lars & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2009. "Limits to Arbitrage and Hedging: Evidence from Commodity Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 7327, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  15. C. Baumeister & G. Peersman, 2010. "Sources of the Volatility Puzzle in the Crude Oil Market," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/634, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  16. 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.
  17. Pindyck, Robert S, 1993. "The Present Value Model of Rational Commodity Pricing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(418), pages 511-30, May.
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  19. Robert S. Pindyck, 2001. "The Dynamics of Commodity Spot and Futures Markets: A Primer," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-30.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Marko Melolinna, 2012. "Macroeconomic shocks in an oil market var," Working Paper Series 1432, European Central Bank.
  2. Ine Van Robays, 2012. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty and the Impact of Oil Shocks," CESifo Working Paper Series 3937, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Isabel Vansteenkiste, 2011. "What is driving oil futures prices? Fundamentals versus speculation," Working Paper Series 1371, European Central Bank.
  4. Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R., 2012. "Financialization and Structural Change in Commodity Futures Markets," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 44(03), August.
  5. Marc Joëts, 2012. "Energy price transmissions during extreme movements," EconomiX Working Papers 2012-38, University of Paris West - Nanterre la Défense, EconomiX.
  6. Robert Czudaj & Joscha Beckmann, 2012. "Spot and futures commodity markets and the unbiasedness hypothesis - evidence from a novel panel unit root test," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1695-1707.
  7. Ivan Diaz-Rainey & Mathias Siems & John K. Ashton, 2011. "The financial regulation of energy and environmental markets," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 19(4), pages 355-369, November.
  8. Alessio Anzuini & Marco J. Lombardi & Patrizio Pagano, 2010. "The impact of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices," Working Paper Series 1232, European Central Bank.
  9. Claudio Morana, 2012. "Oil Price Dynamics, Macro-Finance Interactions and the Role of Financial Speculation," Working Papers 2012.07, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  10. Eickmeier, Sandra & Lombardi, Marco J., 2012. "Monetary policy and the oil futures market," Discussion Papers 35/2012, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre.

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