IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jfutmk/v39y2019i12p1549-1564.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Oil price volatility and real options: 35 years of evidence

Author

Listed:
  • John Elder

Abstract

There has been a surge in interest in the effects of uncertainty on investment decisions, motivated at least in part by the theory of real options. For example, Bloom (2009, Econometrica, 77, 623–685) shows that higher uncertainty causes firms to temporarily pause investment and hiring, generating sharp economic downturns. This paper investigates these effects by examining the response of disaggregated measures of production to volatility in oil prices. We find that increased oil price volatility has strong negative effects on the production of durable goods, such as transportation equipment, and oil exploration, such as the drilling of oil and gas wells.

Suggested Citation

  • John Elder, 2019. "Oil price volatility and real options: 35 years of evidence," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(12), pages 1549-1564, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:39:y:2019:i:12:p:1549-1564
    DOI: 10.1002/fut.22057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/fut.22057
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/fut.22057?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. Ritz, Robert A. & Walther, Ansgar, 2015. "How do banks respond to increased funding uncertainty?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 386-410.
    2. Ryan Kellogg, 2014. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Investment: Evidence from Texas Oil Drilling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1698-1734, June.
    3. Vasia Panousi & Dimitris Papanikolaou, 2012. "Investment, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Ownership," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 1113-1148, June.
    4. Sangjoon Kim & Neil Shephard & Siddhartha Chib, 1998. "Stochastic Volatility: Likelihood Inference and Comparison with ARCH Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(3), pages 361-393.
    5. 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.
    6. Carmelo Giaccotto & Gerson M. Goldberg & Shantaram P. Hegde, 2007. "The Value of Embedded Real Options: Evidence from Consumer Automobile Lease Contracts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 411-445, February.
    7. John Elder & Apostolos Serletis, 2010. "Oil Price Uncertainty," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 1137-1159, September.
    8. Nick Bloom & Stephen Bond & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 391-415.
    9. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    10. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Lange, Steve, 1999. "Forecasting financial market volatility: Sample frequency vis-a-vis forecast horizon," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(5), pages 457-477, December.
    11. Robert S. Pindyck, 2004. "Volatility and commodity price dynamics," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(11), pages 1029-1047, November.
    12. Alberto Moel, 2002. "When Are Real Options Exercised? An Empirical Study of Mine Closings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 35-64, March.
    13. Kevin L. Kliesen, 2008. "Oil and the U.S. macroeconomy: an update and a simple forecasting exercise," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Sep), pages 505-516.
    14. 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.
    15. Don Bredin & John Elder & Stilianos Fountas, 2010. "The Effects of Uncertainty about Oil Prices in G-7," Working Papers 200840, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    16. Plante, Michael D. & Traum, Nora, 2012. "Time-varying oil price volatility and macroeconomic aggregates," Working Papers 1201, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    17. Rentschler, Jun E., 2013. "Oil price volatility, economic growth and the hedging role of renewable energy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6603, The World Bank.
    18. Karl Pinno and Apostolos Serletis, 2013. "Oil Price Uncertainty and Industrial Production," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    19. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    20. Don Bredin & John Elder & Stilianos Fountas, 2011. "Oil volatility and the option value of waiting: An analysis of the G‐7," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 679-702, July.
    21. Gustavo Grullon & Evgeny Lyandres & Alexei Zhdanov, 2012. "Real Options, Volatility, and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1499-1537, August.
    22. 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.
    23. Elder, John, 2003. "An impulse-response function for a vector autoregression with multivariate GARCH-in-mean," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 21-26, April.
    24. Michael D. Plante & Nora Traum, 2012. "Time-varying oil price volatility and macroeconomic aggregates," Working Papers 1201, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    25. Ser-Huang Poon & Clive W.J. Granger, 2003. "Forecasting Volatility in Financial Markets: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 478-539, June.
    26. I-Hsuan Ethan Chiang & W. Keener Hughen & Jacob S. Sagi, 2015. "Estimating Oil Risk Factors Using Information from Equity and Derivatives Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 769-804, April.
    27. Elder, John, 2004. "Another Perspective on the Effects of Inflation Uncertainty," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(5), pages 911-928, October.
    28. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    30. repec:clg:wpaper:2013-03 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Hui Guo & Kevin L. Kliesen, 2005. "Oil price volatility and U.S. macroeconomic activity," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Nov), pages 669-684.
    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. Qin Zhang & Jin Boon Wong, 2023. "The influence of oil price uncertainty on stock liquidity," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 141-167, February.
    2. Ma, Xiaohan, 2023. "Oil uncertainty and the price-cost markup: Evidence from U.S. data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    3. Maghyereh, Aktham & Abdoh, Hussein, 2020. "Asymmetric effects of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Liu, Xinheng & Pan, Sishi & Li, Shuxian & Yang, Xin & Huang, Chuangxia, 2024. "Unraveling the causal impact: Oil price uncertainty on firms’ productivity in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Asad Dossani & John Elder, 2024. "Uncertainty and investment: Evidence from domestic oil rigs," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 323-340, February.
    6. Gürkan Bozma & Murat Akadg & Rahman Aydin, 2021. "Dynamic Relationships between Oil Price, Inflation and Economic Growth: A VARMA, GARCH-in-mean, asymmetric BEKK Model for Turkey," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1266-1281.
    7. Zhou Jie & Chai Hua Qi, 2023. "An equilibrium analysis of the impact of real estate price volatility on macroeconomics based on ant colony algorithm," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 1-26, March.
    8. Chen, Lingtao & Yuan, Yongna & Zhao, Na, 2022. "The effect of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment in the presence of growth options: Evidence from listed companies in China (1998–2019)," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    9. Nima Ebrahimi & Craig Pirrong, 2020. "Oil jump risk," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(8), pages 1282-1311, August.
    10. Śmiech, Sławomir & Papież, Monika & Rubaszek, Michał & Snarska, Małgorzata, 2021. "The role of oil price uncertainty shocks on oil-exporting countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Jin Boon Wong & Qin Zhang, 2020. "Impact of international energy prices on China's industries," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(5), pages 722-748, May.
    12. Zhuyun Xie & Hyder Ali & Suresh Kumar & Salma Naz & Umair Ahmed, 2024. "The Impact of Energy-Related Uncertainty on Corporate Investment Decisions in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-26, May.
    13. Elder, John, 2021. "Canadian industry level production and energy prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    14. Qin Zhang & Jin Boon Wong, 2022. "Do oil shocks impact stock liquidity?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 472-491, March.

    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. Asad Dossani & John Elder, 2024. "Uncertainty and investment: Evidence from domestic oil rigs," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 323-340, February.
    2. Nguyen, Bao H. & Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Tran, Trung Duc, 2022. "Uncertainty-dependent and sign-dependent effects of oil market shocks," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    3. Elder, John, 2021. "Canadian industry level production and energy prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Elder, John, 2020. "Employment and energy uncertainty," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    5. Abiad, Abdul & Qureshi, Irfan A., 2023. "The macroeconomic effects of oil price uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Amélie Charles & Chew Lian Chua & Olivier Darné & Sandy Suardi, 2021. "Oil price shocks, real economic activity and uncertainty," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 364-392, July.
    7. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2020. "How much did uncertainty shocks matter in the Great Depression?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(2), pages 283-323, May.
    8. Ryan Kellogg, 2014. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Investment: Evidence from Texas Oil Drilling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1698-1734, June.
    9. Chan, Ying Tung & Dong, Yilin, 2022. "How does oil price volatility affect unemployment rates? A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    10. Gupta, Rangan & Pierdzioch, Christian & Salisu, Afees A., 2022. "Oil-price uncertainty and the U.K. unemployment rate: A forecasting experiment with random forests using 150 years of data," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Athanasios Triantafyllou & Dimitrios Bakas & Marilou Ioakimidis, 2023. "Commodity price uncertainty as a leading indicator of economic activity," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 4194-4219, October.
    12. Ahmed, M. Iqbal & Farah, Quazi Fidia & Kishan, Ruby P., 2023. "Oil price uncertainty and unemployment dynamics: Nonlinearities matter," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    13. Apostolakis, George N. & Floros, Christos & Gkillas, Konstantinos & Wohar, Mark, 2021. "Financial stress, economic policy uncertainty, and oil price uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    14. Hachula, Michael & Hoffmann, Sebastian, 2015. "The output effects of commodity price volatility: Evidence from exporting countries," Discussion Papers 2015/29, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    15. Elder, John & Payne, James E., 2023. "Racial and ethnic disparities in unemployment and oil price uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    16. Maghyereh, Aktham & Abdoh, Hussein, 2020. "Asymmetric effects of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. Libo Yin, 2016. "Does oil price respond to macroeconomic uncertainty? New evidence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 921-938, November.
    18. Ine Van Robays, 2016. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Oil Price Volatility," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(5), pages 671-693, October.
    19. 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.
    20. Dew-Becker, Ian & Giglio, Stefano & Kelly, Bryan, 2021. "Hedging macroeconomic and financial uncertainty and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 23-45.

    More about this item

    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:wly:jfutmk:v:39:y:2019:i:12:p:1549-1564. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0270-7314/ .

    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.