Oil and the Macroeconomy Since the 1970s
回顾了石油价格冲击导致经济衰退、通胀和增长放缓的观点，指出将石油价格视为外生冲击存在概念困难，并论证宏观经济变量反向影响油价，同时反驳了只有石油冲击才能解释1970年代美国滞胀的说法。
Increases in oil prices have been held responsible for recessions, periods of excessive inflation, reduced productivity and lower economic growth. In this paper, we review the arguments supporting such views. First, we highlight some of the conceptual difficulties in assigning a central role to oil price shocks in explaining macroeconomic fluctuations, and we trace how the arguments of proponents of the oil view have evolved in response to these difficulties. Second, we challenge the notion that at least the major oil price movements can be viewed as exogenous with respect to the US macroeconomy. We examine critically the evidence that has led many economists to ascribe a central role to exogenous political events in modeling the oil market, and we provide arguments in favor of ‘reverse causality’ from macroeconomic variables to oil prices. Third, although none of the more recent oil price shocks has been associated with stagflation in the US economy, a major reason for the continued popularity of the oil shock hypothesis has been the perception that only oil price shocks are able to explain the US stagflation of the 1970s. We show that this is not the case.