IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/2009v30-02-a09.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Crude Oil Prices

Author

Listed:
  • James D. Hamilton

Abstract

This paper examines the factors responsible for changes in crude oil prices. The paper reviews the statistical behavior of oil prices, relates this to the predictions of theory, and looks in detail at key features of petroleum demand and supply. Topics discussed include the role of commodity speculation, OPEC, and resource depletion. The paper concludes that although scarcity rent made a negligible contribution to the price of oil in 1997, it could now begin to play a role.

Suggested Citation

  • James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Understanding Crude Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 179-206.
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:2009v30-02-a09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=2310
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Menzie D. Chinn & Olivier Coibion, 2014. "The Predictive Content of Commodity Futures," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(7), pages 607-636, July.
    3. Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel & Daniel Sperling, 2008. "Evidence of a Shift in the Short-Run Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 113-134.
    4. Boyan Jovanovic, 2007. "Bubbles in Prices of Exhaustible Resources," NBER Working Papers 13320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Abosedra, Salah & Baghestani, Hamid, 2004. "On the predictive accuracy of crude oil futures prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 1389-1393, August.
    6. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    7. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Carson, Richard T., 2008. "Forecasting the path of China's CO2 emissions using province-level information," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 229-247, May.
    8. Menzie D. Chinn & Michael LeBlanc & Olivier Coibion, 2005. "The Predictive Content of Energy Futures: An Update on Petroleum, Natural Gas, Heating Oil and Gasoline," NBER Working Papers 11033, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dahl, Carol & Sterner, Thomas, 1991. "Analysing gasoline demand elasticities: a survey," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 203-210, July.
    10. Andrew Harvey (ed.), 1994. "Time Series," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 599.
    11. Bopp, Anthony E. & Lady, George M., 1991. "A comparison of petroleum futures versus spot prices as predictors of prices in the future," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 274-282, October.
    12. Dermot Gately & Hiliard G. Huntington, 2002. "The Asymmetric Effects of Changes in Price and Income on Energy and Oil Demand," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 19-55.
    13. Brons, Martijn & Nijkamp, Peter & Pels, Eric & Rietveld, Piet, 2008. "A meta-analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A SUR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2105-2122, September.
    14. Tatsu Kambara & Christopher Howe, 2007. "China and the Global Energy Crisis," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12522.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(1 (Spring), pages 215-283.
    2. Carlos Caceres & Leandro Medina, 2012. "Measures of Fiscal Risk in Hydrocarbon-Exporting Countries," IMF Working Papers 2012/260, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Emmanuel Farhi & Ricardo Caballero & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, "undated". "Financial Crash, Commodity Prices and Global Imbalances," Working Paper 20933, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    4. Naser, Hanan, 2016. "Estimating and forecasting the real prices of crude oil: A data rich model using a dynamic model averaging (DMA) approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 75-87.
    5. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2014. "Effects of speculation and interest rates in a “carry trade” model of commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 88-112.
    6. Baumeister, Christiane & Hamilton, James, 2017. "Structural Interpretation of Vector Autoregressions with Incomplete Identification: Revisiting the Role of Oil Supply and Deman," CEPR Discussion Papers 12532, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Wang, Yudong & Wu, Chongfeng, 2013. "Are crude oil spot and futures prices cointegrated? Not always!," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 641-650.
    8. Christiane Baumeister & James D. Hamilton, 2019. "Structural Interpretation of Vector Autoregressions with Incomplete Identification: Revisiting the Role of Oil Supply and Demand Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1873-1910, May.
    9. Liddle, Brantley & Huntington, Hillard, 2020. "‘On the Road Again’: A 118 country panel analysis of gasoline and diesel demand," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 151-167.
    10. Levin, Laurence & Lewis, Matthew S. & Wolak, Frank A., 2022. "Reference dependence in the demand for gasoline," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 561-578.
    11. Liddle, Brantley & Parker, Steven, 2022. "One more for the road: Reconsidering whether OECD gasoline income and price elasticities have changed over time," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    12. Selien De Schryder and Gert Peersman, 2015. "The U.S. Dollar Exchange Rate and the Demand for Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    13. Gillingham, Kenneth & Munk-Nielsen, Anders, 2019. "A tale of two tails: Commuting and the fuel price response in driving," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 27-40.
    14. Yuliya Lovcha & Alejandro Perez-Laborda, 2017. "Structural shocks and dynamic elasticities in a long memory model of the US gasoline retail market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 405-422, September.
    15. Pagano Patrizio & Pisani Massimiliano, 2009. "Risk-Adjusted Forecasts of Oil Prices," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-28, June.
    16. Scott, K. Rebecca, 2015. "Demand and price uncertainty: Rational habits in international gasoline demand," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 40-49.
    17. Ghoddusi, Hamed & Morovati, Mohammad & Rafizadeh, Nima, 2022. "Dynamics of fuel demand elasticity: Evidence from Iranian subsidy reforms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    18. Ashima Goyal & Shruti Tripathi, 2012. "Regulations and price discovery: oil spot and futures markets," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2012-016, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    19. Donna, Javier D., 2018. "Measuring Long-Run Price Elasticities in Urban Travel Demand," MPRA Paper 90059, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Nicolau, Mihaela & Palomba, Giulio, 2015. "Dynamic relationships between spot and futures prices. The case of energy and gold commodities," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 130-143.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aen:journl:2009v30-02-a09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.