Gavyn Davies* The Financial Times
When the Queen asked asked an academic at the LSE why the economics profession had failed to predict the credit crunch, she raised a topic which continues to resonate. In fact, the IMF’s watchdog criticised the organisation on exactly those grounds yesterday. Although many answers have been given to Her Majesty’s question, I suspect that none of them has really settled the issue. Her question is disarmingly simple, but the answer is not.
The latest academic attempt to tackle the question is this piece by Raghuram Rajan. He is well qualified to write on the matter, having delivered a very perceptive warning about a possible crisis to the entire senior cast of global central banking at Jackson Hole in 2005. They politely ignored him. Prof Rajan now argues that economists had all of the models required to understand the credit crisis, but that the subject suffers from being segregated into increasingly narrow fields. It therefore lacks people with the broad overall view necessary to connect all of the diverse strands. This is indeed a problem, but it may not be the whole answer to the Queen’s question.
Macroeconomics etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
Macroeconomics etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
26 Şubat 2011 Cumartesi
How big is the 2011 oil price shock?
Gavyn Davies* The Financial Times
Each of the last five major downturns in global economic activity has been immediately preceded by a major spike in oil prices. Sometimes (e.g. in the 1970s and in 1990), the surge in oil prices has been due to supply restrictions, triggered by Opec or by war in the Middle East. Other times (e.g. in 2008), it has been due to rapid growth in the demand for oil.
But in both cases the contractionary effects of higher energy prices have eventually proven too much for the world economy to shrug off. With the global average price of oil having moved above $100 per barrel in recent days – about 33 per cent higher than the price last summer – it is natural to fear that this latest oil shock may be enough to kill the global economic recovery. But oil prices would have to rise much further, and persist for much longer, for these fears to be justified.
With global oil supply already impacted by Libyan shut-downs, the threat of an oil shock has moved well beyond the realms of the theoretical. According to recent reports, about half of Libya’s 1.6m barrels per day of oil output have been knocked out, and this has been enough to trigger a rise of about $14 per barrel in the spot price of oil in the past week.
Each of the last five major downturns in global economic activity has been immediately preceded by a major spike in oil prices. Sometimes (e.g. in the 1970s and in 1990), the surge in oil prices has been due to supply restrictions, triggered by Opec or by war in the Middle East. Other times (e.g. in 2008), it has been due to rapid growth in the demand for oil.
But in both cases the contractionary effects of higher energy prices have eventually proven too much for the world economy to shrug off. With the global average price of oil having moved above $100 per barrel in recent days – about 33 per cent higher than the price last summer – it is natural to fear that this latest oil shock may be enough to kill the global economic recovery. But oil prices would have to rise much further, and persist for much longer, for these fears to be justified.
With global oil supply already impacted by Libyan shut-downs, the threat of an oil shock has moved well beyond the realms of the theoretical. According to recent reports, about half of Libya’s 1.6m barrels per day of oil output have been knocked out, and this has been enough to trigger a rise of about $14 per barrel in the spot price of oil in the past week.
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