RESEARCH PAPERS ARE PRELIMINARY MATERIALS CIRCULATED TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL COMMENT. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS. WHILE RESEARCH PAPERS BENEFIT FROM ACTIVE UHERO DISCUSSION, THEY HAVE NOT UNDERGONE FORMAL ACADEMIC PEER REVIEW.
Using a sample of 48 contiguous U.S. states for the period 1973-2013, we study how oil price shocks influence state-level economic growth. The analysis incorporates (1) a structural decomposition of the supply and demand factors that drive the real price of crude oil; (2) heterogeneity of states in terms of their production and consumption of oil and natural gas; and (3) economic spillovers across neighboring states. Oil price effects vary across states, depending on the underlying source of the price shock and a state’s average production of oil relative to its average consumption. Oil-exporting states are more vulnerable to unanticipated changes in oil prices, and the direct effect of oil price shocks can magnify or temper effects on neighboring states. Aggregated predictions from the state-level model also differ modestly from stand-alone aggregate model (Kilian, 2009). The aggregated state-level model implies that the recent (2005-2016) decline in U.S. dependence on foreign oil reduced aggregate sensitivity to exogenous supply shocks by more than a third.