Oil Prices and the World Economy

Oil prices, associated with bouts of inflation and economic instability over the last 30 years, have been rising in recent months. We argue that the inflationary consequences of a rise in oil prices depend upon the policy response of the monetary authorities. They can ameliorate the short term impacts on output, but only at the cost of higher inflation. In the short term the size and distribution of output effects from an increase in oil prices depends on the intensity of oil use in production and on the speed at which oil producers spend their revenue. In the medium term higher oil prices change the terms of trade between the OECD and the rest of the world and hence reduce the equilibrium level of output in the OECD. In this paper we first discuss oil market developments and survey previous studies on the impacts of increases in oil prices. We then use our model, NiGEM, to evaluate the impact of temporary and permanent oil price increases on the world economy under various policy responses, and also analyse the impact of a decline in the speed of oil revenue recycling. 1 This paper has benefited from inputs from a number of colleagues at the Institute, and we would like to thank Martin Weale, Sylvia Gottschalk, Ian Hurst, Dawn Holland and Rebecca Riley for their contributions. We have also benefited from comments received at an Austrian Central bank Seminar on the Macroeconomic Implications of Higher Oil Prices. All errors remain ours. Please do not cite without permission. [email protected]