Oil Price Shocks: Can they Account for the Stagflation in the 1970's?

November 1, 2005

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Format: Chicago

Benjamin L Hunt. Oil Price Shocks: Can they Account for the Stagflation in the 1970's?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2005) accessed May 21, 2025

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

Using a variant of the IMF's Global Economy Model (GEM), featuring energy as both an intermediate input into production and a final consumption good, this paper examines the macroeconomic implications of large increases in the price of energy. Within a fully optimizing framework with nominal and real rigidities arising from costly adjustment, large increases in energy prices can generate an inflation response similar to that seen in the 1970s if the monetary authority misperceives the economy's supply capacity and workers resist the erosion in their real consumption wages resulting from the price increase. In the absence of either of these two responses, the model suggests that energy price shocks cannot generate the type of stagflation witnessed in the 1970s. Further, even allowing for these two effects, the results do not suggest that the increase in the price of oil in late 1973 and early 1974 can fully explain the extent of the slowing in real activity or the magnitude of the acceleration in inflation experienced in the United States in 1974 and 1975.

Subject: Energy prices, Inflation, Oil prices, Output gap, Potential output, Prices, Production

Keywords: Energy prices, Global, Goods firm, Goods price setting, Goods producer, Goods production, Inflation, Inflation forecasting monetary policy rule, Input price, Intermediate goods, Monetary policy, Nominal interest rate, Nontradable goods, Oil prices, Oil prices shocks, Output gap, Output price, Potential output, Price level, Price shock, Producer price of energy, Rest-of-world price, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

43
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2005/215
Stock No:

WPIEA2005215
ISBN:

9781451862348
ISSN:

1018-5941

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