IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v39y2018i2p173-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

OPEC’s Impact on Oil Price Volatility: The Role of Spare Capacity

Author

Listed:
  • Axel Pierru
  • JamesL. Smith
  • Tamim Zamrik

Abstract

OPEC claims to hold and use spare production capacity to stabilize the crude oil market. We study the impact of that buffer on the volatility of oil prices. After estimating the stochastic process that generates shocks to demand and supply, and assessing OPEC’s limited ability to accurately measure and offset those shocks, we find that OPEC’s use of spare capacity has reduced price volatility, perhaps by as much as half. We also apply the principle of revealed preference to infer the implicit loss function that rationalizes OPEC’s investment in spare capacity and compare it to other estimates of the cost of crude oil supply shortfalls. That comparison suggests that OPEC’s buffer capacity was in line with global macroeconomic needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Axel Pierru & JamesL. Smith & Tamim Zamrik, 2018. "OPEC’s Impact on Oil Price Volatility: The Role of Spare Capacity," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(2), pages 173-196, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:39:y:2018:i:2:p:173-196
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.39.2.apie
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.39.2.apie
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.39.2.apie?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Lutz Kilian, 2008. "Exogenous Oil Supply Shocks: How Big Are They and How Much Do They Matter for the U.S. Economy?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 216-240, May.
    3. Axel Pierru and Walid Matar, 2014. "The Impact of Oil Price Volatility on Welfare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Implications for Public Investment Decision-making," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    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. Almutairi, Hossa & Pierru, Axel & Smith, James L., 2024. "Managing the oil market under misinformation: A reasonable quest?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).

    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. Zhang, Zhikai & Wang, Yudong & Xiao, Jihong & Zhang, Yaojie, 2023. "Not all geopolitical shocks are alike: Identifying price dynamics in the crude oil market under tensions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Lutz Kilian, 2010. "Oil Price Shocks, Monetary Policy and Stagflation," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Renée Fry & Callum Jones & Christopher Kent (ed.),Inflation in an Era of Relative Price Shocks, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    3. Radosław Puka & Bartosz Łamasz & Marek Michalski, 2021. "Effectiveness of Artificial Neural Networks in Hedging against WTI Crude Oil Price Risk," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-26, June.
    4. Stavros Degiannakis, George Filis, and Renatas Kizys, 2014. "The Effects of Oil Price Shocks on Stock Market Volatility: Evidence from European Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    5. Caldara, Dario & Cavallo, Michele & Iacoviello, Matteo, 2019. "Oil price elasticities and oil price fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Kilian, Lutz & Lee, Thomas K., 2014. "Quantifying the speculative component in the real price of oil: The role of global oil inventories," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 71-87.
    7. Nooman Rebei & Rashid Sbia, 2021. "Transitory and permanent shocks in the global market for crude oil," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(7), pages 1047-1064, November.
    8. Morana, Claudio, 2013. "Oil price dynamics, macro-finance interactions and the role of financial speculation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 206-226.
    9. Basher, Syed Abul & Haug, Alfred A. & Sadorsky, Perry, 2012. "Oil prices, exchange rates and emerging stock markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 227-240.
    10. Zeina Alsalman, 2023. "Oil price shocks and US unemployment: evidence from disentangling the duration of unemployment spells in the labor market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 479-511, July.
    11. Knut Are Aastveit & Hilde C. Bjørnland & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2015. "What Drives Oil Prices? Emerging Versus Developed Economies," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1013-1028, November.
    12. Broadstock, David C. & Filis, George, 2014. "Oil price shocks and stock market returns: New evidence from the United States and China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 417-433.
    13. Ratti, Ronald A. & Vespignani, Joaquin L., 2013. "Liquidity and crude oil prices: China's influence over 1996–2011," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 517-525.
    14. Gong, Xu & Chen, Liqiang & Lin, Boqiang, 2020. "Analyzing dynamic impacts of different oil shocks on oil price," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Cross, Jamie & Nguyen, Bao H., 2017. "The relationship between global oil price shocks and China's output: A time-varying analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 79-91.
    16. Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Teresa Maria Rodrigues & Maria Joana Soares, 2014. "Oil Shocks and the Euro as an Optimum Currency Area," Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance, in: Marco Gallegati & Willi Semmler (ed.), Wavelet Applications in Economics and Finance, edition 127, pages 143-156, Springer.
    17. Liu, Li & Wang, Yudong & Wu, Chongfeng & Wu, Wenfeng, 2016. "Disentangling the determinants of real oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 363-373.
    18. Christiane Baumeister & Gert Peersman, 2013. "Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the US Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 1-28, October.
    19. Mohaddes, Kamiar & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 2016. "Country-specific oil supply shocks and the global economy: A counterfactual analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 382-399.
    20. Francesco Lippi & Andrea Nobili, 2012. "Oil And The Macroeconomy: A Quantitative Structural Analysis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1059-1083, October.

    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:sae:enejou:v:39:y:2018:i:2:p:173-196. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.