IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ila/anaeco/v35y2020i2p57-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Geopolitical tensions, OPEC news, and the oil price: A granger causality analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Fernandois

    (Central Bank of Chile)

  • Carlos A. Medel

    (Central Bank of Chile)

Abstract

To what extent do geopolitical tensions, supply disturbances, and unexpected news in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and major oil-producer countries affect the oil price? Are oil price forecasters aware of these tensions? Do these tensions affect forecasters’ consensus when making their predictions? Is there a difference between news coming from OPEC countries versus other major oil exporters? In this article, we analyse the influence of geopolitical tensions, news, and events in major oil producers on the Brent oil price, its forecasts, and the dispersion of those forecasts. We empirically test these hypotheses by introducing and making use of a unique media-based measure of geopolitical tensions accounting for supply crunches and expansions for the 2001-12 period, by means of Granger causality. We found evidence suggesting that overall geopolitical tensions affect the current level of oil price, its forecasts, and the dispersion of those forecasts. More remarkably, when separating between OPEC and non-OPEC news, we found that the former affect oil price forecasts and its consensus, and at the same time, the current oil price determine oil-based news on OPEC countries. Moreover, non-OPEC news affect the current and future oil price level and neither the forecast nor the dispersion of those forecasts its affected by the level. All these results imply that geopolitical tensions in a broader sense affect oil prices, and OPEC news should be read jointly with other geopolitical tensions as oil price drivers –and not as an isolated news generator affecting oil prices. This weakens the hypothesis of OPEC as a price setter in the global oil market whose behaviour, in turn, seems a matter for forecasters. These results are important suggesting that, in order to keep track of oil price dynamics, one needs to account for a more general context of geopolitical tensions beyond OPEC countries, relying on signals and externalities that are not necessarily based on economic rationale.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Fernandois & Carlos A. Medel, 2020. "Geopolitical tensions, OPEC news, and the oil price: A granger causality analysis," Revista de Analisis Economico – Economic Analysis Review, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business, vol. 35(2), pages 57-90, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ila:anaeco:v:35:y:2020:i:2:p:57-90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rae-ear.org/index.php/rae/article/view/734
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Saiz & Uri Simonsohn, 2013. "Proxying For Unobservable Variables With Internet Document-Frequency," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 137-165, February.
    2. Cairns, Robert D. & Calfucura, Enrique, 2012. "OPEC: Market failure or power failure?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 570-580.
    3. Hochman, Gal & Zilberman, David, 2015. "The political economy of OPEC," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 203-216.
    4. Massimo Guidolin & Eliana La Ferrara, 2010. "The economic effects of violent conflict: Evidence from asset market reactions," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(6), pages 671-684, November.
    5. Carlos Medel, 2015. "Fuelling Future Prices: Oil Price and Global Inflation," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 770, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Clive W.J. Granger, 2004. "Time Series Analysis, Cointegration, and Applications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 421-425, June.
    7. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Gupta, Rangan & Kollias, Christos & Papadamou, Stephanos, 2017. "Geopolitical risks and the oil-stock nexus over 1899–2016," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 165-173.
    8. Timothy J. Considine, 2006. "Is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve our Ace in the Hole?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 91-112.
    9. James L. Smith, 2005. "Inscrutable OPEC? Behavioral Tests of the Cartel Hypothesis," The Energy Journal, , vol. 26(1), pages 51-82, January.
    10. Carlos A. Medel, 2016. "Un análisis de la capacidad predictiva del precio del cobre sobre la inflación global," Notas de Investigación Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 19(2), pages 128-153, August.
    11. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    12. Breusch, T S, 1978. "Testing for Autocorrelation in Dynamic Linear Models," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(31), pages 334-355, December.
    13. Brémond, Vincent & Hache, Emmanuel & Mignon, Valérie, 2012. "Does OPEC still exist as a cartel? An empirical investigation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 125-131.
    14. Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Miller, Stephen M., 2015. "Regime switching model of US crude oil and stock market prices: 1859 to 2013," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 317-327.
    15. Bekiros, Stelios & Gupta, Rangan & Paccagnini, Alessia, 2015. "Oil price forecastability and economic uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 125-128.
    16. Robert K. Kaufmann & Stephane Dees & Pavlos Karadeloglou & Marcelo Sanchez, 2004. "Does OPEC Matter? An Econometric Analysis of Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, , vol. 25(4), pages 67-90, October.
    17. Hyndman, Kyle, 2008. "Disagreement in bargaining: An empirical analysis of OPEC," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 811-828, May.
    18. Pedro A. Almoguera & Christopher C. Douglas & Ana María Herrera, 2011. "Testing for the cartel in OPEC: non-cooperative collusion or just non-cooperative?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 27(1), pages 144-168, Spring.
    19. Jose de Gregorio & Oscar Landerretche & Christopher Neilson, 2007. "Another Pass-Through Bites the Dust? Oil Prices and Inflation," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 155-208, January.
    20. Walter N. Thurman & Mark E. Fisher, 1988. "Chickens, Eggs, and Causality, or Which Came First?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 70(2), pages 237-238.
    21. Franz Wirl and Azra Kujundzic, 2004. "The Impact of OPEC Conference Outcomes on World Oil Prices 1984-2001," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 45-62.
    22. Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Li, Huimin, 2004. "The impact of the Asian crisis on the behavior of US and international petroleum prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 135-160, January.
    23. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    24. Shawkat Hammoudeh & Eisa Aleisa, 2004. "Dynamic Relationships among GCC Stock Markets and Nymex Oil Futures," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(2), pages 250-269, April.
    25. Griffin, James M & Xiong, Weiwen, 1997. "The Incentive to Cheat: An Empirical Analysis of OPEC," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 289-316, October.
    26. Hamilton, James D., 2003. "What is an oil shock?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 363-398, April.
    27. Ratti, Ronald A & Vespignani, Joaquin L., 2012. "Why are crude oil prices high when global activity is weak?," MPRA Paper 43777, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    28. Mensi, Walid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2014. "How do OPEC news and structural breaks impact returns and volatility in crude oil markets? Further evidence from a long memory process," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 343-354.
    29. Lin, Sharon Xiaowen & Tamvakis, Michael, 2010. "OPEC announcements and their effects on crude oil prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 1010-1016, February.
    30. Pindyck, Robert S, 1978. "Gains to Producers from the Cartelization of Exhaustible Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 238-251, May.
    31. Carlos Bowles & Roberta Friz & Veronique Genre & Geoff Kenny & Aidan Meyler & Tuomas Rautanen, 2007. "The ECB survey of professional forecasters (SPF) – A review after eight years’ experience," Occasional Paper Series 59, European Central Bank.
    32. Andrew C. Harvey, 1990. "The Econometric Analysis of Time Series, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 026208189x, April.
    33. A.F Alhajji & David Huettner, 2000. "OPEC and World Crude Oil Markets from 1973 to 1994: Cartel, Oligopoly, or Competitive?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 31-60.
    34. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    35. Schmidbauer, Harald & Rösch, Angi, 2012. "OPEC news announcements: Effects on oil price expectation and volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1656-1663.
    36. Loderer, Claudio, 1985. "A Test of the OPEC Cartel Hypothesis: 1974-1983," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 991-1006, July.
    37. Driesprong, Gerben & Jacobsen, Ben & Maat, Benjamin, 2008. "Striking oil: Another puzzle?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 307-327, August.
    38. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    39. Aguiar-Conraria, Luís & Wen, Yi, 2012. "OPEC's oil exporting strategy and macroeconomic (in)stability," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 132-136.
    40. Joo, Young C. & Park, Sung Y., 2017. "Oil prices and stock markets: Does the effect of uncertainty change over time?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 42-51.
    41. Marco G.D. Guidi & Alexander Russell & Heather Tarbert, 2006. "The effect of OPEC policy decisions on oil and stock prices," OPEC Energy Review, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, vol. 30(1), pages 1-18, March.
    42. Malik, Farooq & Hammoudeh, Shawkat, 2007. "Shock and volatility transmission in the oil, US and Gulf equity markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 357-368.
    43. Dennis W. Draper, 1984. "The behavior of event‐related returns on oil futures contracts," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(2), pages 125-132, June.
    44. Ratti, Ronald A. & Vespignani, Joaquin L., 2013. "Why are crude oil prices high when global activity is weak?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 133-136.
    45. Salant, Stephen W, 1976. "Exhaustible Resources and Industrial Structure: A Nash-Cournot Approach to the World Oil Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(5), pages 1079-1093, October.
    46. Kenny, Geoff & Genre, Véronique & Bowles, Carlos & Friz, Roberta & Meyler, Aidan & Rautanen, Tuomas, 2007. "The ECB survey of professional forecasters (SPF) - A review after eight years' experience," Occasional Paper Series 59, European Central Bank.
    47. Scotti, Chiara, 2016. "Surprise and uncertainty indexes: Real-time aggregation of real-activity macro-surprises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-19.
    48. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    49. Awartani, Basel & Aktham, Maghyereh & Cherif, Guermat, 2016. "The connectedness between crude oil and financial markets: Evidence from implied volatility indices," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 56-69.
    50. Shackle,G. L. S., 2012. "Expectation in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107629141, October.
    51. Granger, C. W. J., 1980. "Testing for causality : A personal viewpoint," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 329-352, May.
    52. Kollias, Christos & Kyrtsou, Catherine & Papadamou, Stephanos, 2013. "The effects of terrorism and war on the oil price–stock index relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 743-752.
    53. Adelman, M. A., 2002. "World oil production & prices 1947-2000," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 169-191.
    54. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    55. Clifton T. Jones, 1990. "OPEC Behaviour Under Falling Prices: Implications For Cartel Stability," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 117-130.
    56. Richard Deaves & Itzhak Krinsky, 1992. "The behavior of oil futures returns around OPEC conferences," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(5), pages 563-574, October.
    57. Eduardo López & Ercio Muñoz, 2012. "Precio del Petróleo: Tensiones Geopolíticas y Eventos de Oferta," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 680, Central Bank of Chile.
    58. Neely, Christopher J. & Rapach, David E., 2011. "International comovements in inflation rates and country characteristics," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1471-1490.
    59. Tarek Atallah & Fred Joutz & Axel Pierru, 2013. "Does disagreement among oil price forecasters reflect future volatility? Evidence from the ECB Surveys," Working Papers 2013-001, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    60. Demirer, RIza & Kutan, Ali M., 2010. "The behavior of crude oil spot and futures prices around OPEC and SPR announcements: An event study perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1467-1476, November.
    61. Maghyereh, Aktham I. & Awartani, Basel & Bouri, Elie, 2016. "The directional volatility connectedness between crude oil and equity markets: New evidence from implied volatility indexes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 78-93.
    62. Hsiao, Cheng, 1981. "Autoregressive modelling and money-income causality detection," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 85-106.
    63. Stephen M. Horan, Jeffrey H. Peterson, and James Mahar, 2004. "Implied Volatility of Oil Futures Options Surrounding OPEC Meetings," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 103-126.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ronnie Figueiredo & Mohammad Soliman & Alamir N. Al-Alawi & Maria José Sousa, 2022. "The Impacts of Geopolitical Risks on the Energy Sector: Micro-Level Operative Analysis in the European Union," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-12, November.
    2. Khurshid, Adnan & Khan, Khalid & Rauf, Abdur & Cifuentes-Faura, Javier, 2024. "Effect of geopolitical risk on resources prices in the global and Russian-Ukrainian context: A novel Bayesian structural model," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. 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.

    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. Loutia, Amine & Mellios, Constantin & Andriosopoulos, Kostas, 2016. "Do OPEC announcements influence oil prices?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 262-272.
    2. Rangan Gupta & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Seong-Min Yoon, 2019. "OPEC News Announcement Effect on Volatility in the Crude Oil Market: A Reconsideration," Advances in Decision Sciences, Asia University, Taiwan, vol. 23(4), pages 1-23, December.
    3. Celso Brunetti, Bahattin Buyuksahin, Michel A. Robe, and Kirsten R. Soneson, 2013. "OPEC "Fair Price" Pronouncements and the Market Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    4. Mensi, Walid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2014. "How do OPEC news and structural breaks impact returns and volatility in crude oil markets? Further evidence from a long memory process," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 343-354.
    5. Golombek, Rolf & Irarrazabal, Alfonso A. & Ma, Lin, 2018. "OPEC's market power: An empirical dominant firm model for the oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 98-115.
    6. Al Rousan, Sahel & Sbia, Rashid & Tas, Bedri Kamil Onur, 2018. "A dynamic network analysis of the world oil market: Analysis of OPEC and non-OPEC members," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 28-41.
    7. Spencer, Simon & Bredin, Don, 2019. "Agreement matters: OPEC announcement effects on WTI term structure," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 589-609.
    8. Ji, Qiang & Guo, Jian-Feng, 2015. "Oil price volatility and oil-related events: An Internet concern study perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 256-264.
    9. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2018. "On the interdependence of natural gas and stock markets under structural breaks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 149-161.
    10. Celso Brunetti & Marc Joëts & Valérie Mignon, 2023. "Reasons Behind Words: OPEC Narratives and the Oil Market," Working Papers 2023-19, CEPII research center.
    11. Ahmed Ali & Granberg Mark & Troster Victor & Uddin Gazi Salah, 2022. "Asymmetric dynamics between uncertainty and unemployment flows in the United States," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 26(1), pages 155-172, February.
    12. Kisswani, Khalid M., 2016. "Does OPEC act as a cartel? Empirical investigation of coordination behavior," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 171-180.
    13. Bharati, Rakesh & Crain, Susan J. & Kaminski, Vincent, 2012. "Clustering in crude oil prices and the target pricing zone hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1115-1123.
    14. Stavros Degiannakis & George Filis & Vipin Arora, 2018. "Oil Prices and Stock Markets: A Review of the Theory and Empirical Evidence," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(5), pages 85-130, September.
    15. Schmidbauer, Harald & Rösch, Angi, 2012. "OPEC news announcements: Effects on oil price expectation and volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1656-1663.
    16. Kaushik Ranjan Bandyopadhyay, 2022. "Oil and Gas Markets and COVID-19: A Critical Rumination on Drivers, Triggers, and Volatility," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Gupta, Kartick & Banerjee, Rajabrata, 2019. "Does OPEC news sentiment influence stock returns of energy firms in the United States?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 34-45.
    18. López, Raquel, 2018. "The behaviour of energy-related volatility indices around scheduled news announcements: Implications for variance swap investments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 356-364.
    19. Reynolds, Douglas B. & Pippenger, Michael K., 2010. "OPEC and Venezuelan oil production: Evidence against a cartel hypothesis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6045-6055, October.
    20. Khalid Kisswani, 2014. "OPEC and political considerations when deciding on oil extraction," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 38(1), pages 96-118, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Oil-producer countries; OPEC; oil price; granger causality.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    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:ila:anaeco:v:35:y:2020:i:2:p:57-90. 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: Mauricio Tejada (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deilacl.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.