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Oil Prices, Gasoline Prices and Inflation Expectations: A New Model and New Facts

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  • Kilian, Lutz
  • Zhou, Xiaoqing

Abstract

The conventional wisdom that inflation expectations respond to the level of the price of oil (or the price of gasoline) is based on testing the null hypothesis of a zero slope coefficient in a static single-equation regression model fit to aggregate data. Given that the regressor in this model is not stationary, the null distribution of the t-test statistic is nonstandard, invalidating the use of the normal approximation. Once the critical values are adjusted, these regressions provide no support for the conventional wisdom. Using a new structural vector regression model, however, we demonstrate that gasoline price shocks may indeed drive one-year household inflation expectations. The model shows that there have been several such episodes since 1990. In particular, the rise in household inflation expectations between 2009 and 2013 is almost entirely explained by a large increase in gasoline prices. However, on average, gasoline price shocks account for only 39% of the variation in household inflation expectations since 1981.

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  • Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2020. "Oil Prices, Gasoline Prices and Inflation Expectations: A New Model and New Facts," CEPR Discussion Papers 15168, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15168
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    Cited by:

    1. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2020. "The Role of the Prior in Estimating VAR Models with Sign Restrictions," Working Papers 2030, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    2. Boufateh, Talel & Saadaoui, Zied, 2021. "The time-varying responses of financial intermediation and inflation to oil supply and demand shocks in the US: Evidence from Bayesian TVP-SVAR-SV approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Krystyna Gomółka & Piotr Kasprzak, 2022. "Household Ability of Expenditures on Electricity and Energy Resources in the Countries That Joined the EU after 2004," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-21, April.
    4. Ahmad Al Humssi & Maria Petrovskaya & Milana Abueva, 2022. "Modelling the Impact of World Oil Prices and the Mining and Quarrying Sector on the United Arab Emirates’ GDP," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Andreani, Michele & Giri, Federico, 2023. "Not a short-run noise! The low-frequency volatility of energy inflation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    6. Philipp F. M. Baumann & Enzo Rossi & Alexander Volkmann, 2020. "What Drives Inflation and How: Evidence from Additive Mixed Models Selected by cAIC," Papers 2006.06274, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation; Expectations; Anchor; Missing disinflation; Oil price; Gasoline price; Household survey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

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