E nergy analysts sometimes speak of oil’s “golden era,” that 100-year stretch between 1874 and 1974 when the real price was relatively stable within a range from $10 to $20 per barrel (BP, 2008) in 2007 dollars. Figure 1 shows that in recent decades, that stability has ended. In October 1973, several Arabic members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced that i...

A model with costly adjustment of production and costly inventories implies that wholesale gasoline prices will respond with a lag to crude oil cost shocks. Unlike explanations that rely upon menu costs, imperfect information, or long-term buyer/seller relationships, this model also predicts that futures prices for gasoline will adjust incompletely to crude oil price shocks that occur close to ...

This paper constructs a macro-finance model for commodity futures. I document a feedback relationship between crude oil prices and real economic activity. The channel from real activity to oil prices is unspanned – meaning not identified in current futures prices – consistent with oil futures as a hedge asset against supply shocks. Unspanned macroeconomic risks have first order effects on risk ...