IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/url/izvest/v23y2022i3p23-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How do petrol prices respond to variations in crude oil and the exchange rate? Evidence from South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Baneng Naape

    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

  • Ndzalama C. Mathebula

    (University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa)

Abstract

Energy resources are a significant production input due to being at the bottom of supply chains. The study investigates the response of petrol prices to variations in the domestic and international components. Methodologically, the research rests on the neoclassical economics. Monthly time series data of the South African Department of Energy and Mineral Resources spanning from 2002 to 2021 is analysed by means of econometric modelling, including unit root analysis, structural vector autoregression, impulse response and variance decomposition. The impulse response function indicates that basic petrol prices respond positively to their own shocks and to shocks in Brent crude oil prices and this response is substantial in size. On the contrary, basic petrol prices respond negatively to shocks in exchange rates, albeit the response is small in size. The variance decomposition reveals that variations in basic petrol prices are largely explained by their own shocks in the short run and by shocks in Brent crude oil prices in the long run. Domestically, petrol pump prices respond positively to shocks in basic petrol prices, inland transport costs, wholesale and retail margins while their response is negative towards shocks in the Road Accident Fund levy and muted towards shocks in fuel taxes. Given the rise in global crude oil prices due to geopolitical woes and their considerable share in the overall domestic petrol pump price as shown in the study, the government should consider implementing price-based policies such as indirect subsidies through the reduction of taxes and levies on petroleum products, and targeted income subsidies to provide the muchneeded financial relief to households and businesses. In addition, it can focus on reducing the reliance on oil through energy efficiency improvement and diversification into non-petroleum sources of energy.

Suggested Citation

  • Baneng Naape & Ndzalama C. Mathebula, 2022. "How do petrol prices respond to variations in crude oil and the exchange rate? Evidence from South Africa," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 23-42, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:url:izvest:v:23:y:2022:i:3:p:23-42
    DOI: 10.29141/2658-5081-2022-23-3-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://jne.usue.ru/images/download/96/en/2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://jne.usue.ru/en/issues-2022/1180
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.29141/2658-5081-2022-23-3-2?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. Mabugu, Ramos & Robichaud, Veronique & Maisonnave, Helene & Chitiga, Margaret, 2013. "Impact of fiscal policy in an intertemporal CGE model for South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 775-782.
    2. Peter R. Hartley & Kenneth B. Medlock III, 2014. "The Relationship between Crude Oil and Natural Gas Prices: The Role of the Exchange Rate," The Energy Journal, , vol. 35(2), pages 25-44, April.
    3. LeBlanc, Michael & Chinn, Menzie David, 2004. "Do High Oil Prices Presage Inflation? The Evidence from G-5 Countries," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4wt4m7hg, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    4. Nathan Gagnon & Charles A.S. Hall & Lysle Brinker, 2009. "A Preliminary Investigation of Energy Return on Energy Investment for Global Oil and Gas Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Anis Mahomed Karodia & Paresh Soni, 2016. "President Jacob Zuma and South Africa¡¯s Financial Crisis: A Machivellian Debacle," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(7), pages 24-54, July.
    6. Cavalcanti, Tiago & Jalles, João Tovar, 2013. "Macroeconomic effects of oil price shocks in Brazil and in the United States," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 475-486.
    7. Philippe Burger & Estian Calitz, 2021. "Covid‐19, Economic Growth and South African Fiscal Policy," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(1), pages 3-24, March.
    8. Álvarez, Luis J. & Hurtado, Samuel & Sánchez, Isabel & Thomas, Carlos, 2011. "The impact of oil price changes on Spanish and euro area consumer price inflation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 422-431.
    9. Zesheng Sun & Junjie Hong & Xiangdong Xu, 2013. "Price effect of domestic oil tax under vertically related market structure: evidence from the U nited S tates, EU and J apan," OPEC Energy Review, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, vol. 37(1), pages 81-104, March.
    10. Newbery, D., 2005. "Why Tax Energy? Towards a More Rational Energy Policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0508, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Alan A. Carruth & Mark A. Hooker & Andrew J. Oswald, 1998. "Unemployment Equilibria And Input Prices: Theory And Evidence From The United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 621-628, November.
    12. François Lescaroux & Valérie Mignon, 2008. "On the Influence of Oil Prices on Economic Activity and Other Macroeconomic and Financial Variables," Working Papers 2008-05, CEPII research center.
    13. Metcalfe, Robert & Dolan, Paul, 2012. "Behavioural economics and its implications for transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 503-511.
    14. Umar Bala & Lee Chin, 2018. "Asymmetric Impacts of Oil Price on Inflation: An Empirical Study of African OPEC Member Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-21, November.
    15. Berument, M. Hakan & Sahin, Afsin & Sahin, Serkan, 2014. "The relative effects of crude oil price and exchange rate on petroleum product prices: Evidence from a set of Northern Mediterranean countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 243-249.
    16. Brown, Stephen P. A. & Yucel, Mine K., 2002. "Energy prices and aggregate economic activity: an interpretative survey," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 193-208.
    17. Edelstein, Paul & Kilian, Lutz, 2009. "How sensitive are consumer expenditures to retail energy prices?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 766-779, September.
    18. Kui-Yin Cheung & Elspeth Thomson, 2004. "The Demand for Gasoline in China: A Cointegration Analysis," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 533-544.
    19. David M. Newbery, 2005. "Why Tax Energy? Towards a More Rational Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-40.
    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. Daniel Francois Meyer, 2018. "The Impact of Changes in Fuel Prices on Inflation and Economic Growth in South Africa," Proceedings of the 11th International RAIS Conference, November 19-20, 2018 010DM, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    2. Naser, Hanan, 2018. "Financial Development and Economic Growth in Oil-Dependent Economy: The case of Bahrain," MPRA Paper 89743, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Sep 2018.
    3. Zakaria, Muhammad & Khiam, Shahzeb & Mahmood, Hamid, 2021. "Influence of oil prices on inflation in South Asia: Some new evidence," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Akoum, Ibrahim & Graham, Michael & Kivihaho, Jarno & Nikkinen, Jussi & Omran, Mohammed, 2012. "Co-movement of oil and stock prices in the GCC region: A wavelet analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 385-394.
    5. Uğur Akkoç & Anıl Akçağlayan & Gamze Kargın Akkoç, 2021. "The impacts of oil price shocks in Turkey: sectoral evidence from the FAVAR approach," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1147-1171, November.
    6. Aharon, David Y. & Azman Aziz, Mukhriz Izraf & Kallir, Ido, 2023. "Oil price shocks and inflation: A cross-national examination in the ASEAN5+3 countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Filis, George & Degiannakis, Stavros & Floros, Christos, 2011. "Dynamic correlation between stock market and oil prices: The case of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 152-164, June.
    8. Deluna, Roperto S. & Loanzon, Jeanette Isabelle V. & Tatlonghari, Virgilio M., 2021. "A nonlinear ARDL model of inflation dynamics in the Philippine economy," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Ebru Caglayan Akay & Sinem Guler Kangalli Uyar, 2016. "Determining the Functional Form of Relationships between Oil Prices and Macroeconomic Variables: The Case of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey Countries," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(3), pages 880-891.
    10. Köse, Nezir & Ünal, Emre, 2021. "The effects of the oil price and oil price volatility on inflation in Turkey," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    11. Katircioglu, Salih Turan & Sertoglu, Kamil & Candemir, Mehmet & Mercan, Mehmet, 2015. "Oil price movements and macroeconomic performance: Evidence from twenty-six OECD countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 257-270.
    12. Tan, Yan & Uprasen, Utai, 2023. "Asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on income inequality in ASEAN countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. Ewing, Bradley T. & Thompson, Mark A., 2007. "Dynamic cyclical comovements of oil prices with industrial production, consumer prices, unemployment, and stock prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5535-5540, November.
    14. Virjinia Jeliazkova, 2010. "Effects of the Dynamics of the Oil Price – Theoretical and Empirical Bases," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 127-165.
    15. Castro, César & Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca, 2017. "Oil price pass-through along the price chain in the euro area," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 24-30.
    16. Ge, Zhenyu & Sun, Yang, 2024. "Asymmetric impact of oil price shocks on inflation: Evidence from quantile-on-quantile regression," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    17. Naser, Hanan, 2015. "Analysing the long-run relationship among oil market, nuclear energy consumption, and economic growth: An evidence from emerging economies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 421-434.
    18. François Lescaroux & Valérie Mignon, 2009. "Measuring The Effects Of Oil Prices On China'S Economy: A Factor‐Augmented Vector Autoregressive Approach," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 410-425, August.
    19. Kocaarslan, Baris & Soytas, Mehmet Ali & Soytas, Ugur, 2020. "The asymmetric impact of oil prices, interest rates and oil price uncertainty on unemployment in the US," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. Sek, Siok Kun, 2017. "Impact of oil price changes on domestic price inflation at disaggregated levels: Evidence from linear and nonlinear ARDL modeling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 204-217.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    petrol prices; exchange rates; crude oil; pricing; South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • B27 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - International Trade and Finance
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: 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:url:izvest:v:23:y:2022:i:3:p:23-42. 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: Victor Blaginin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/usueeru.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.