Transmissions of Structural Oil Shocks to Core Prices

Abstract

This paper investigates how structural oil market shocks transmit through real oil price changes to the U.S. core prices. Separating out the sources of oil price increases reveals that supply shocks lead to significant and persistent increases in core prices while oil inventory demand shocks pull them down. Other demand-driven shocks do not cause any significant core price fluctuations. Examining different sample periods, we find empirical evidence supporting the strengthening of the oil price pass-through to some degree since mid-1980; however, not much change in the pass-through has been observed since the outbreak of Covid-19. Our findings highlight that understanding the sources of oil price changes is crucial for gauging their impacts on core prices and furthermore, for the conduct of monetary policy.