IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v57y2019i5d10.1007_s00181-018-1504-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moody oil: What is driving the crude oil price?

Author

Listed:
  • Filippo Lechthaler

    (CER-ETH Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich
    University of Basel)

  • Lisa Leinert

    (McKinsey & Company Inc Switzerland)

Abstract

The unparalleled surge of the crude oil price after 2003 has triggered a heated scientific and public debate about its ultimate causes. Unexpected demand growth particularly from emerging economies appears to be the most prominently supported reason among academics, suggesting that market participants did not anticipate future market conditions. We study the price dynamics after 2003 in the global crude oil market using a structural VAR model, paying particular attention to anticipative market activities. These are inferred from a time series of news items measuring the flow of publicly available information relevant for the crude oil market. We find that such forward-looking demand activities—instead of demand arising from real economic activity—have played an important role for the run-up in the price of crude oil after 2003. This indicates that market participants have anticipated a higher demand in the future, rather than having reacted to unexpected shocks from the current business cycle. We additionally find that emerging economies have not majorly contributed to the price surge.

Suggested Citation

  • Filippo Lechthaler & Lisa Leinert, 2019. "Moody oil: What is driving the crude oil price?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 1547-1578, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:57:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s00181-018-1504-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-018-1504-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-018-1504-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-018-1504-x?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
    ---><---

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

    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. Büyükşahin, Bahattin & Robe, Michel A., 2014. "Speculators, commodities and cross-market linkages," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-70.
    3. Bassam Fattouh, Lutz Kilian, and Lavan Mahadeva, 2013. "The Role of Speculation in Oil Markets: What Have We Learned So Far?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    4. Morana, Claudio, 2014. "Insights on the global macro-finance interface: Structural sources of risk factor fluctuations and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 64-79.
    5. Goncalves, Silvia & Kilian, Lutz, 2004. "Bootstrapping autoregressions with conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 89-120, November.
    6. Perron, Pierre, 1988. "Trends and random walks in macroeconomic time series : Further evidence from a new approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 297-332.
    7. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Understanding Crude Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 179-206.
    8. Lutz Kilian & Clara Vega, 2011. "Do Energy Prices Respond to U.S. Macroeconomic News? A Test of the Hypothesis of Predetermined Energy Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 660-671, May.
    9. Lütkepohl,Helmut & Krätzig,Markus (ed.), 2004. "Applied Time Series Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521547871, October.
    10. 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 1053-1069, June.
    11. Michael J. Lamla & Samad Sarferaz, 2012. "Updating inflation expectations," KOF Working papers 12-301, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    12. Lombardi, Marco J. & Van Robays, Ine, 2011. "Do financial investors destabilize the oil price?," Working Paper Series 1346, European Central Bank.
    13. Luciana Juvenal & Ivan Petrella, 2015. "Speculation in the Oil Market," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 621-649, June.
    14. Pfaff, Bernhard, 2008. "VAR, SVAR and SVEC Models: Implementation Within R Package vars," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i04).
    15. Lutz Kilian & Bruce Hicks, 2013. "Did Unexpectedly Strong Economic Growth Cause the Oil Price Shock of 2003–2008?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 385-394, August.
    16. Burbidge, John & Harrison, Alan, 1984. "Testing for the Effects of Oil-Price Rises Using Vector Autoregressions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(2), pages 459-484, June.
    17. Lutz Kilian & Daniel P. Murphy, 2014. "The Role Of Inventories And Speculative Trading In The Global Market For Crude Oil," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 454-478, April.
    18. James Mitchell & Richard J. Smith & Martin R. Weale & Stephen Wright & Eduardo L. Salazar, 2005. "An Indicator of Monthly GDP and an Early Estimate of Quarterly GDP Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(501), pages 108-129, February.
    19. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    20. Dräger, Lena & Lamla, Michael J., 2012. "Updating inflation expectations: Evidence from micro-data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 807-810.
    21. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    22. Kaufmann, Robert K., 2011. "The role of market fundamentals and speculation in recent price changes for crude oil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 105-115, January.
    23. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    24. Godfrey, Leslie G, 1978. "Testing against General Autoregressive and Moving Average Error Models When the Regressors Include Lagged Dependent Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1293-1301, November.
    25. Hamilton, James D & Herrera, Ana Maria, 2004. "Oil Shocks and Aggregate Macroeconomic Behavior: The Role of Monetary Policy: Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 265-286, April.
    26. Kilian,Lutz & Lütkepohl,Helmut, 2018. "Structural Vector Autoregressive Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107196575, October.
    27. Lutz Kilian, 1998. "Small-Sample Confidence Intervals For Impulse Response Functions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 218-230, May.
    28. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Lütkepohl,Helmut & Krätzig,Markus (ed.), 2004. "Applied Time Series Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521839198, October.
    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. Adedeji, Abdulkabir N. & Ahmed, Funmilola F. & Adam, Shehu U., 2021. "Examining the dynamic effect of COVID-19 pandemic on dwindling oil prices using structural vector autoregressive model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    2. Gong, Xu & Guan, Keqin & Chen, Liqing & Liu, Tangyong & Fu, Chengbo, 2021. "What drives oil prices? — A Markov switching VAR approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(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. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Robert Socha & Piotr Wdowiński, 2018. "Crude oil price and speculative activity: a cointegration analysis," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 10(3), pages 263-304, September.
    3. Filippo Lechthaler & Lisa Leinert, 2012. "Moody Oil - What is Driving the Crude Oil Price?," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 12/168, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    4. Kyritsis, Evangelos & Serletis, Apostolos, 2018. "The zero lower bound and market spillovers: Evidence from the G7 and Norway," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 100-123.
    5. 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.
    6. Jochen H. F. Güntner & Katharina Linsbauer, 2018. "The Effects of Oil Supply and Demand Shocks on U.S. Consumer Sentiment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(7), pages 1617-1644, October.
    7. Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2023. "The Econometrics of Oil Market VAR Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honor of Joon Y. Park: Econometric Methodology in Empirical Applications, volume 45, pages 65-95, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. Yannick Le Pen & Benoît Sévi, 2013. "Futures Trading and the Excess Comovement of Commodity Prices," Working Papers halshs-00793724, HAL.
    9. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Filippidis, Michail & Filis, George & Gabauer, David, 2021. "A closer look into the global determinants of oil price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    10. Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Pantelidis, Theologos, 2015. "Speculative behaviour and oil price predictability," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 128-136.
    11. Śmiech, Sławomir & Papież, Monika & Dąbrowski, Marek A., 2015. "Does the euro area macroeconomy affect global commodity prices? Evidence from a SVAR approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 485-503.
    12. Blaise Gnimassoun & Marc Joëts & Tovonony Razafindrabe, 2016. "On the link between current account and oil price fluctuations in diversified economies: The case of Canada," Working Papers hal-04141574, HAL.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Alquist, Ron & Kilian, Lutz & Vigfusson, Robert J., 2013. "Forecasting the Price of Oil," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 427-507, Elsevier.
    17. Gnimassoun, Blaise & Joëts, Marc & Razafindrabe, Tovonony, 2017. "On the link between current account and oil price fluctuations in diversified economies: The case of Canada," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 63-78.
    18. Jamie L. Cross & Bao H. Nguyen & Trung Duc Tran, 2022. "The role of precautionary and speculative demand in the global market for crude oil," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 882-895, August.
    19. Bassam Fattouh & Lutz Kilian & Lavan Mahadeva, 2013. "The Role of Speculation in Oil Markets: What Have We Learned So Far?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 34(3), pages 7-33, July.
    20. Lorusso, Marco & Pieroni, Luca, 2018. "Causes and consequences of oil price shocks on the UK economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 223-236.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Oil price; Emerging economies; Fundamentals; Speculation; Financialization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:spr:empeco:v:57:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s00181-018-1504-x. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.