The Importance of Crude Oil

From the middle of twentieth century, due to exceptional importance of the crude oil in the supply of the world's energy demands, it has become one of the major indicators of economic activities of the world. Even after the appearance of alternate forms of energy like solar power, water and wind, the importance of crude oil as the main source of energy still cannot be denied.

This sharp increase in the world oil prices and the volatile exchange rates are generally regarded as the factors of discouraging economic growth. Particularly, the very recent highs, recorded in the world oil market bring apprehension about possible slump in the economic growth in both developed and developing countries.

A large number of researchers proposed that exchange rate volatility and oil price fluctuations have considerable consequences on real economic activities. The impact of oil price fluctuation is expected to be different between in oil exporting and in oil importing countries. An oil price increase should be considered as bad news for oil importing countries and good news for oil exporting countries, while the reverse should be expected when the oil price decreases. Through demand and supply transmission mechanism, oil prices impacts the real economic activity. The supply side effects are associated with the fact that crude oil is a basic input to production, and an increase in oil price leads to a rise in production costs ultimately that result in firms’ lower output. Oil prices changes also entail demand-side effects on investment and consumption. Consumption is also affected indirectly through its positive relation with disposable income. Moreover, oil prices have an adverse impact on investment by increasing firms’ costs. On the oth...

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...slightest as compare to others, because its indigenous production meets a larger share of its oil requirements so its GDP falling by 0.3% only. Japan’s GDP would reduce by 0.4%, This analysis presumes constant exchange rates and economic growth for the US economy.

The present paper is the extension of the existing empirical literature in two directions. First, we have not focused on the oil importing US economy only , rather we analyzed the effects of an oil price shock in two different type of countries which include five oil exporting countries i.e. Saudi Arabia, Norway, Venezuela, Kuwait , Nigeria and five oil importing country i.e. Pakistan, India , China, Japan , Germany. Secondly, we will not only demonstrate the relationship between oil prices and real economic growth but we will also analyze the role of the real exchange rate for real economic growth.