Oil Prices

We test for the presence of low-dimensional chaotic structure in crude oil, heating oil, and unleaded gasoline futures prices from the early 1980s. Evidence on chaos will have important implications for regulators and short-term trading strategies. While we find strong evidence of non-linear dependencies, the evidence is not consistent with chaos. Our test results indicate that ARCH-type processes, with controls for seasonal variation in prices, generally explain the non-linearities in the data. We also demonstrate that employing seasonally adjusted price series contributes to obtaining robust results via the existing tests for chaotic structure. Maximum likelihood methodologies, that are robust to the non-linear dynamics, lend support for Samuelson's hypothesis on contract-maturity effects in futures price-changes. However, the tests for chaos are not found to be sensitive to the maturity effects in the futures contracts. The results are robust to controls for the oil shocks of 1986 and 1991. ᮊ A. Chatrath . 0140-9883r01r$ -see front matter ᮊ 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž . PII: S 0 1 4 0 -9 8 8 3 0 0 0 0 0 7 9 -7 ( )

This study looks for signals of economic awareness on online social media and tests their significance in economic predictions. The study analyzes, over a period of two years, the relationship between West Texas Intermediate crude oil price daily movements and multiple predictors extracted from Twitter, Google Trends, Wikipedia, and the Global Data on Events, Language, and Tone database (GDELT). Semantic analysis is applied to study the sentiment, emotionality, and complexity of the language used. ARIMAX models are used to make predictions and to confirm variable values. Results show that the combined analysis of the four media platforms carries valuable information in financial forecasting. Twitter language complexity, GDELT number of articles and Wikipedia page reads have the highest predictive power. The study also gives evidence of the different speeds at which collective awareness is reflected on different media. In comparison to previous works, more media sources and more dimensions of the interaction and of the language used are combined in a joint analysis.

Oil has today become a very important part of any economy. And it is generally said that even a slight increase or decrease in the oil prices affect the country's inflation to a large extent. To investigate this we examined two periods in the context of Indian economy, one from April 2005 to December 2007 and the other from January 2008 to November 2013. By applying the Johansen co-integration test and the Granger Causality test the relationship was examined. From April 2005 to December 2007 there was no significant impact of oil prices on inflation found but the econometric examination showed the effect of oil prices on inflation between January 2008 to November 2013. Contrary to the general perception, it was concluded that there would always be a correlation between oil prices and inflation is not necessary.

This study aimed at determining the impact of oil prices, exchange rate and capital structure on the Performance of NSE listed firms. Annual data include oil prices, exchange rates, debt-equity ratio and firm performance are modeled into a linear regression model. The annual average international prices of the three oil products prices of Diesel oil, Premium and Kerosene were used as these are the major consumed products in Kenya. Hypothesis were formulated and tested on a population of sixty four listed firms at the NSE. The study used petroleum prices obtained from Energy Regulatory commission website, global prices obtained from plats, exchange rates from CBK, leverage and return on Assets (ROA) from audited financials obtained from NSE year books. The study applied census survey due to the small size of the population of firms listed at the NSE. The findings show there is significant relationship between oil price changes, exchange rate, capital structure and company performance.

This study intended to test the effect of the inflation rate, unemployment rate and oil prices on each other. In the research to test causality between inflation rate, unemployment rate, and oil prices have been made Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Philips-Perron (PP) Unit Root Test, Johansen Cointegration Test, Vector Error Correction Model, and Granger Causality Analysis by using monthly data for the period 2010: 01 - 2016: 12. According to the Unit Root Test, all variables are stationary. According to the Johansen Cointegration Test, variables affect each other in the long run. According to the Vector Error Correction Model a correct relationship has been found between the unemployment rate and the inflation rate in the short term. According to the Granger causality test a one-way causality has been found between the unemployment rate and inflation. In the period covered, it was found that there is no opposite relationship between the unemployment rate and inflation as Philips argues, but a relationship in the right direction.
Key Words: İnflation Rate, Unemployment Rate, Oil Prices Jel Classifications: C22, E31, F30, Q43

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: The competing strategies between OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC producers make the oil supply market a complex system, and thus, it is very difficult to model and to make predictions. In this paper, we combine the macro-model based on game theory and micro-model to propose a new approach for forecasting oil supply. We take into account the microscopic behaviour in the clearing market and also use the game relationships to adjust oil supplies in our approach. For the supply model, we analyse and consider the different behaviour of non-OPEC and OPEC producers. According to our analysis, limiting the oil supply, and thus maintaining oil price, is the best strategy for OPEC in the low-price scenario, while the rising supply is the best strategy in the high-price scenario. No matter what the oil price is, the dominant strategy for non-OPEC producers is to increase their oil supply. In the high-price scenario, OPEC will try to deplete non-OPEC's share in the oil supply market, which is to OPEC's advantage.

يهدف البحث الى دراسة دور التنوع الإقتصادي في التقليل من تداعيات الأزمة المالية العالمية و خصوصاً بعد إنخفاض أسعار النفط عالميأ , حيث أن هذه التحديات الإقتصادية من شأنها أن تقوض من الإستقرار في الإقتصاد المحلي بسبب إعتماده بشكل كبير على الصادرات النفطية .
يتناول البحث مشكلة توفر الثروات الطبيعية و إعتماد الإقتصاد العراقي عليها مما أدى الى إهمال باقي القطاعات العامة و الخاصة والذي أدى الى إعتماد الموازنة العامة للدولة على صادرات النفط بشكل كبير جداً وبالتالي حصول عجز كبير بسبب الإنخفاض غير المتوقع للنفط عالمياً مما إضطر العراق الى الإقتراض لسد جزء من ذلك العجز .
يفترض البحث إن تطبيق محددات التنوع الإقتصادي بشكل فعّال و كفوء من شأنه أن يساعد في تقليل أثار إنخفاض النفط و الأزمة المالية العالمية و بالتالي القدرة على مواجهة التحديات الإقتصادية ببيئة إقتصادية مستقرة نسبياً .
توصل الباحث الى العديد من النتائج المهمة و التي من شأنها أن تساعد العراق على مواجهة التحديات الإقتصادية من خلال تعزيز التنوع الإقتصادي للصادرات و إضافة قيمة للمنتجات و الخدمات التي تقدمها القطاعات الاخرى غير النفطية , وتحويل التوجه الوظيفي الى القطاع الخاص بدلاً من القطاع العام .

Since the announcement, in 2007, of the pre-salt oil layer by the Brazilian Oil Company (Petrobras), there has been a lot of optimism about Brazil’s future economic development. Even before any extraction has been started off, pre-salt revenues have already been legally addressed to fund country-wide educational and health systems. Nevertheless, on one hand, the country formally subscribes to international negotiations on climate change to curb fossil fuel emissions; on the other hand, even though claiming to bear a clean energy matrix, it falls back on its newest oil reserves to support its future economic development. Nowadays, though, many leading economic countries have heavily invested in renewable rather than in fossil fuel energy sources. Moreover, alternative fossil options, such as shale gas, have become economically and technologically feasible. So, in this international context, is the ownership of a large oil reserve a blessing or a curse? The answer is given by a non-renewable resource multi-period model (Hotelling model). By drawing an optimal depletion price path along which extraction revenues would not dramatically rise or fall in response to a non-optimal programme, its objective is to prevent the “Dutch disease” and distortions in the oil volume to be eventually shared between the pre-salt reserve owner (government) and its exploiting companies. If market prices are higher than the optimal ones, the primary commodity is likely to be over-depleted and largely exported, thereby causing the exchange rate to over-appreciate and the demand for foreign, instead of domestic, goods to increase. Nonetheless, results show that optimal prices, quantities and economic lifetime of the resource critically rely on current estimates for the existing stock, oil prices and interest rates.

The complexity of the world oil market has increased dramatically in recent years and new approaches are needed to understand, model, and forecast oil prices today. In addition to the commencement of the financialization era in oil markets, there have been structural changes in the global oil market. Financial instruments are communicating information about future conditions much more rapidly than in the past. Prices from long and short duration contracts have started moving more together. Sudden supply and demand adjustments, such as the financial crisis of 2008-2009, faster Chinese economic growth, the Libyan uprising, the Iranian nuclear standstill or the deepwater horizon oil spill, change expectations and current prices.
The daily Brent spot price fluctuated between $30 and above $140 per barrel since the beginning of 2004. Both fundamental and financial explanations have been offered as explanatory factors. This paper selectively reviews the voluminous literature on oil price determinants since the early 1970s. It concludes that most researchers attribute the long-run oil price path to fundamental factors such as economic growth, resource depletion, technical advancements in both oil supply and demand, and the market organization of major oil petroleum exporting countries (OPEC). Short-run price movements are more difficult to explain. Many researchers attribute short-run price movements to fundamental supply and demand factors in a market with very little quantity response to price changes. Nevertheless, there appears to be some evidence of occasional financial bubbles particularly in months leading up to the financial collapse in 2008. These conflicting stories will not be properly integrated without a meeting of the minds between financial and energy economists.

Modeling and forecasting crude oil price volatility is crucial in many financial and
investment applications. The main purpose of this paper is to review and assess the current state
of oil market volatility knowledge. It highlights the properties and characteristics of the oil price
volatility that models seek to capture, and discuss the different modeling approaches to oil price
volatility. Asymmetric response to price change, persistence and mean reversion, structural
breaks, and possible market spillover of volatility are discussed. To complement the discussion,
WTI futures price data is used to illustrate these properties using non-parametric and conditional
modeling methods. The GARCH-type models usually applied in the oil price volatility literature
are also explored. We additionally examine the exogenous factors that may influence volatility in
the oil markets.

This research study evaluated the impact of oil price shocks on the banking sector profitability of an oil-dependent, bank-based developing economy of Nigeria. The study used an unbalanced panel dataset of 12 commercial banks that control about 76 percent of Nigerian banking industry assets, over a period of ten years spanning between 2006 and 2015 and covering two major price shock events of 2008/2009 and 2014/2015. This study tested the hypotheses of the impact of oil price shocks on Nigerian banking system profitability as well as the mechanism of transmission (direct or indirect) using a robust system-generalised method of moments dynamic panel-data model. Findings from this study empirically confirmed the impact of oil price shocks on Nigerian banking system profitability and indicated that the transmission mechanism is direct, unlike similar studies conducted in Middle East and North African countries, which indicated that the transmission mechanism is via indirect macroeconomic variables. Oil and gas sector concentration appeared to be the key driver of the direct transmission mechanism. The impact of oil price shocks on the Nigerian banking system also appeared to manifest primarily through the domestic systemically important banks. Findings also indicated the existence of a profit persistence phenomenon in the Nigerian banking system.

This study examined the impact of oil price on African stock markets. Using quarterly data from five selected oil producing countries with stock market presence, from Q1:2010 to Q4:2018, the study deployed dynamic panel analysis technique for a model comprising stock returns, real gross domestic product growth rate, exchange rate and OPEC basket price. From the findings, an adverse effect of oil prices existed on stock markets in Africa, attributable to fragmented and underdeveloped capital markets. Also, real gross domestic product growth rate had a positive impact on African stock markets, thus, confirming that economic growth positively influences stock returns in the African stock markets. The relationship exhibited by stock markets and the oil price has an immediate implication of shifting foreign direct investments in and away from stock markets in African oil-dependent economies. Based on the empirical findings, the study recommended that oil-exporting developing countries should devise strategies that can ensure stability in their capital markets by vigorously pursuing pro-growth policies irrespective of the shocks in oil price and other exogenous macroeconomic indicators.

This study acknowledge the existing theoretical and empirical framework in which the relationship between carbon emissions, economic growth are examined by considering oil price impacts, as an indicator of variations in fuel energy consumption from period 1960-2011.Using both VAR and VEC models in investigating the influence of oil price on emission in Nigeria, the paper found that one-year lag value of carbon emission and Real GDP significantly and positively influenced the level of CO2,while one year lag value of crude oil price positively and insignificantly affected the Co2 but its two year lag impacted negatively and insignificantly even at 10 percent level of significance. However, the VEC model on the other hand, indicated that only crude oil price positively and significantly influences the level of Nigeria’s CO2 emission in the long run. Also,  a negative and statistically significant effect is exhibited from one year lag value of RGDP Square and two-year lag value of crude oil prices at 5 percent level of significance. From the model, error term has a correct sign but not statistically significance. Its coefficient(-0.03) indicates that 3 percent adjustment takes every year, and it would take more than 30 years to normalize the equilibrium if there is any shock to the Nigerian economy.

Keywords: Carbon Emissions, Oil Prices, Vector Error Correction Model,Time Series and Nigeria

The Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Division series publishes reviews and analyses of sector experience from around the world as well as new findings from analytical work. It places particular emphasis on how the experience and knowledge gained relates to developing country policy makers, communities affected by extractive industries, extractive industry enterprises, and civil society organizations. We hope to see this series inform a wide range of interested parties on the opportunities as well as the risks presented by the sector.

The oil is one of the most important factors affecting the economy of the world that is why any change in the oil prices brings change in all the economic variables. For this purpose the researcher have analyzed the impact of oil prices on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Stock market , For this purpose the researcher collected the data from secondary sources on CPI and KSE-100 Index from 2007 to 2012. To analyze the impact of the oil prices the researchers used the multi regression method and analyzed the data in eviws. For this purpose the researcher first checked the stationarity of the data through augmented dickey fuller test and then applied the Johansen cointegration Test and the cointegration results showed that there is a positive relationship among oil price, CPI and KSE-100 Index. Though the found results don't show the very strong relationship but it helps in concluding that oil prices have effect on CPI and KSE-100 Index

High Oil price fluctuations have been a common feature in Nigeria and these have considerably constituted a major
source of fiscal policy disturbance to the Nigerian economy as well as the economies of other oil producing countries
of the world. The over-reliance on oil production for income generation combined with local undiversified revenue
and export bases is an issue for concern. This has policy implications for economic policy and in particular fiscal
policy management. The motivation for this study is to examine the effect of oil price shock on fiscal policy in the
country. Using structural vector autoregression (SVAR) methodology, the effects of crude oil price fluctuations on
two major key fiscal policy variables (government expenditure (GEXP) and government revenue (GREV)), money
supply (MS2) and GDP were examined. The results showed that oil prices have significant effect on fiscal policy in
Nigeria within the study period of 1980:1 to 2009:4. The study also revealed that oil price shock affects GREV and
GDP first before reflecting on fiscal expenditure. The study suggests strongly that diversification of the economy is
necessary in order to minimize the consequences of oil price fluctuations on government revenue, by implication
government expenditure planning in the country.

The Iranian nuclear crisis which started in 2003 has transformed into a tense scenario due to a transatlantic alliance which seeks to put pressure on Iran and force it to negotiate, as a result of the last wave of oil embargoes and by Iran’s threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz in response. The main subject of this paper is the threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which emerged in a period of mutual showdown, psychological warfare and propaganda. This paper investigates the questions of why Iran has put forward this card, whether Iran will really carry out this card and what the possible consequences of such an initiative would be. And finally, the possibility of blocking the strait will be analyzed.

The PRIX index value for Q4 2016 is 44.09, based on input from 268 country analysts. This is the lowest PRIX index value ever registered, indicating a significant reduction in the flow of oil onto international markets and promoting an oil price rebound. The drop of 3.57 index points from Q3 to Q4 is the largest quarterly drop ever registered by the index, strengthening the prospects for a fall in global oil exports. It is the third quarter in a row that the index is significantly below a neutral value of 50, indicating a clear trend over time towards a weakening global supply side in oil markets. However, the impact on the oil price also depends on other factors, and in particular how much of the gap is filled by a rebound of US shale oil production. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are among the biggest exporters that have seen major drop s in their index values, pulling the global index downwards. At 93.75, Libya has the highest index value of all of the countries, pointing towards a possible end to its export problems. Iran has bounced back to a high index value of 85.00, meaning that the Iran Country Analysts continue to expect rapidly rising exports from Iran.

This paper examines the interactive relationships between oil price shocks and stock market in 11 OECD countries using Vector Error Correction Models (VECM). Considering both world oil production and world oil prices to supervise for oil supply and oil demand shocks, strong evidence of sensitivity of stock market returns to the oil price shocks specifications is found. As for impulse response functions, it is found that the impact of oil price shocks substantially differs along the different countries and that the results also differ along the various oil shock specifications. Our finding suggests that oil supply shocks have a negative effect on stock market returns in the net oil importing OECD countries. However, the stock market returns are negatively impacted by oil demand shocks in the oil importing OECD countries, and positively impacted in the oil exporting OECD countries.

This article studied the relationship between stock
prices and crude oil prices of Nigeria using a Markov
switching model. Certain properties of the stock price
series and crude oil price series such as breaks and
stationarity, which are necessary before choosing a
multivariate time series model for this relationship were
investigated. Unit root and cointegration structural
break tests were used where evidence of breaks exists.
In particular, each of the series was found to be a
nonlinear and nonstationary series with evidence of a
structural break. The results of the unit root and
cointegration tests in the presence of structural breaks
indicated evidence of I (1) and no cointegration between
the series. Consequently, a Markov switching VAR
(MSM(2)-VAR(1)) model with two regimes was fitted to
the data having established the suitability of the series to
regime switching models. The results showed that high
volatility regime occurs when the economy was under
recession. Furthermore, there exists a positive
relationship between stock prices and crude oil prices
during the high volatility regime and a negative
relationship during the low volatility regime.

This research paper reviewed literature on mitigation strategies that can be employed to reduce the impact of oil price volatility, specifically on the cost of electricity. The paper outlines Jamaica’s vulnerability to such volatility by highlighting the country’s large dependence on oil as an input in electricity production as well as the manner in which the commodity is sourced. Based on our findings, oil prices were very volatile over the period examined, as such the research focused on Hedging, Price Smoothing and Diversification as possible strategies that can be used to reduce the impact of such volatility. Given the country’s current hedge programme, the call option contracts executed by the government were examined. The strike prices quoted were compared to forecasted spot prices to determine the possible payoffs and profit if any. In the end none of the options were exercised as the strike prices were greater than the spot prices at maturity. Price smoothing was also examined using twelve (12), six (6) and three (3) months moving average method. Under the three methods we found that the longer the smoothing period the greater the impact was on the volatility as a result of optimum smoothing being demonstrated. Finally, portfolio theory was used to demonstrate diversification. We explored the financial theory that is used to build optimum portfolios and applied it to electricity generation by finding the most efficient way to use oil, coal, liquid natural gas and alternative energy as inputs in the production of electricity. In the end we concluded that these three strategies when executed effectively can achieve the desired results of the Jamaican Government, which is to significantly reduce the risks associated oil price volatility and its impact on electricity prices for consumers.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between the crude oil price and food prices in Turkey for the quarterly period in 2000-2013 by using a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model. NARDL results suggest that asymmetric cointegration exists among the variables, namely, the food prices, oil prices, energy prices and real income. Furthermore, empirical findings show that there is also significant transmission of oil prices to food prices. The long-run coefficient is significant, due to both positive and negative changes of oil prices on food price. The effect of the positive changes in oil prices on food prices is as follows; an increase of 1% oil prices, result in a 0.47 % rise in food prices. Moreover, the effect of the negative changes in oil prices on food prices is smaller in magnitude, with a 1 % decrease of changes in oil prices resulting in a nearly 0.19 % decrease in food prices. Our results suggest that in the long-run, changes of the positive in oil prices have a considerably larger impact on the food prices compared to negative changes in oil prices in Turkey. As expected, the coefficients on real income and energy prices are found to be positive, which indicate that 1% increase of the real income and energy prices increase food prices by around 0.24% and 0.19%, respectively

The purpose of this research is to review of subsidies removal for fuel, implementation of new taxation system, and drawbacks of green investment as the impacts of falling oil price in Malaysia. To identify the impact of oil price falls and fully deregulated system of retail fuel product for consumers and how it affects the current consumer behaviors and purchasing pattern in Malaysia. Facts were analyzed and explored to understand what kind of impacts will effect on consumers when the price of oil continuously falling in the market. Results of the study showed that the falling oil price has negative and positive impact on consumers and businesses.

This paper examines the relationship between the global oil prices and current account balances in Czechia, Hungary, and Poland by using ARDL and causality analysis. Our estimates indicate that there is a co-integrating relationship among the global oil price, current account balance, GDP growth rate, and real exchange rate in the sample countries. We find that a change in oil price has a significant effect on the current account balance in Poland and Czechia. Additionally, our results suggest that a change in the growth rate exerts a significant effect on the current account in these two countries. Moreover, there is a causal relationship running from the oil prices to current account balances in all sample countries in the short run. Furthermore, it seems that the growth rates Granger cause the current account in Czechia and Hungary in the short run. Finally, we also detect a long run and strong causality between variables in some cases.

This study investigates the relationship between current account deficit and oil prices in Turkey over the period from 1976 to 2016 by utilizing the Zivot-Andrews Unit Root Test, Gregory-Hansen Cointegration Test, Toda-Yamamoto Causality Test methods. The tests indicate that both variables are stationary when their first differences are taken. According to cointegration test results there is a long run relationship between the current account deficit and oil prices in Turkey. The results of Toda-Yamamoto Causality Test indicate that there is unidirectional causality from oil prices to current account deficit.

The impact of oil price changes on stock market index of the JSE, South Africa, was examined using NARDL model using 2008-2017 monthly data of aggregated industrial indices. All-Share index was incorporated in the estimation equation to represent market factors. The results indicate that in the short-term, the indices responded asymmetrically to oil price changes whilst in the long-term they responded symmetrically. Oil & Gas, Industrials, Consumers services and Technology indices followed oil price change direction whereas Consumer goods and Financials indices opposed oil price change direction. Healthcare and Telecommunications responded in one direction irrespective oil price change direction.

Following the recent plunge in the price of crude oil in the international market and its attendant implications on oil-exporting countries, this paper simulated the impact of a fifty per cent decline in world oil price on agriculture and household welfare using a general equilibrium model, and data from a social accounting matrix (SAM) for Nigeria. Results show that gross domestic output and supply of composites in the agriculture sectors increased substantially, causing agriculture prices to decline. Furthermore, the shock reduced incomes/expenditure in all household groups except urban-north households that recorded an increase. We therefore conclude that lower oil prices may not necessarily lead to output losses, but could boost output in other sectors, engendering diversification of the export base. Also, targeted interventions would prove more effective in mitigating the negative impact of oil price shocks on households than general palliative measures based on the results of the study.

The relationship between oil price shocks and macroeconomic factors has attracted substantial emprical research in both developed and developing countries. This study investigates impact of linear and various non-linear specifications of oil price shocks on chosen macroeconomic variables (GDP, inflation, net exports and real exchange rate) for an oil importing and developing country-Turkey. The study uses of quarterly data for Turkey over the period 1974:Q1 to 2013:Q1. The results of study indicate that oil price shocks have a significant impact on GDP, inflation and net exports in Turkey. The results of the Granger-causality test, variance decomposition analysis and impulse response functions all showed that different measures of linear and positive oil shocks have not caused the real exchange rate. Positive oil shocks have a more pronounced effect on macroeconomic variables than negative shocks. The tests support the existence of asymmetric effects of oil price shocks because this paper finds that negative oil shocks significantly cause GDP.

Investments in stocks, gold and oil contracts are always thought to be the best source of investment in developing markets. Investors keep on swapping their investment in different investments options to gain the maximum return. In Pakistan stock market, gold and oil investments are ranked among the most desirable area of investments. In this paper the researcher tired to study that how KSE-100 Index affects the oil and gold prices in Pakistani market. This paper will help the investor to investigate the relationship in the said investment options in Pakistan. For this purpose the researcher on the basis of available secondary data collected the KSE-100 Index, oil prices and gold prices for the time period 2005 to 2011. The researcher took oil price and gold prices as dependent variables where as KSE-100 Index is taken as independent variable. The researcher applied the simple regression models separately for both dependent variables and concluded that there is no obvious relationship in these variables.

The study examines the vital connection between stock returns and oil
price changes for oil-exporting/importing countries separately. We present evidence employing granger causality, impulse response, and error variance decomposition based on panel vector autoregression. The results of panel granger causality suggested that after the oil price crash owing to the covid-19 pandemic, the interdependence between oil and stock price changes increased. Similar results were revealed by
impulse response graphs and forecast error variance decomposition. Specifically, in the period marked by the rapid outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, causality from oil to stocks increased. Although we found that both oil-exporting and oil-importing countries were affected in a similar way, oil price changes had a larger impact on oil-exporting countries. The findings of the present study have implications for investors and fund managers. By incorporating crude oil price in the prediction models, the accuracy of the stock returns forecast can be improved.

Empirical analyses have determined a correlation between high oil prices and the potential for interstate conflict and instability. This correlation has been proof for countries where oil exports represent more than the 10 per cent of the GDP. Between mid-2014 and the third quarter of 2017, oil prices have been constantly marking historical minimums. Framing this context, old and new diplomatic, political, financial, societal and geopolitical factors have been configuring an international ecosystem submerged into deep contradictions and radical and unexpected shifts. This paper assesses the impacts of a long period of low oil prices on regional stability and security by focusing on the Gulf region. The findings reveal that a long span of time with sliding oil prices has accentuated the risk of potential conflict and regional instability.

F. Hollande, déclara au meeting du Bourget pendant la campagne des présidentielles le 22 janvier 2012 : « Mon véritable adversaire n'a pas de nom, pas de visage, pas de parti, il ne présentera jamais sa candidature, et pourtant il gouverne (...), c'est le monde de la finance ». Nous étions en pleine crise des subprimes et j'avais alimenté des futurs députés socialistes et l'équipe du futur président d'articles sur la dictature des marchés et la turpitude des spéculateurs. Si j'étais parmi les rares à avoir dénoncé les dérives de la dérégulation des systèmes bancaires et financiers, c'est parce que les analystes et les commentateurs les plus médiatisés étaient liés à des groupes financiers puissants. Sait-on que Goldman Sachs finance les Think Tanks les plus influents ? Dans son dernier livre paru en janvier 2016, N. Sarkozy fait sa mea culpa en imputant ses mauvaises décisions à la pensée unique. On voit bien comment des idées distillées par certains milieux financiers, surtout étatsuniens. Maintenant que les marchés financiers s'écroulent, on commence à critiquer les QE et l'inefficacité des Banques Centrales et incriminer le pétrole. Les banques et les assurances étant bridées dans leurs activités de marché, ce sont les hedges funds qui mènent la danse. On nous explique que si les bourses dévissent c'est la faute à l'Arabie Saoudite qui inonde le marché pétrolier pour punir la Russie, les Etats-Unis et l'Iran. Plus sérieusement, la vérité est ailleurs. Dans mon ouvrage paru chez l'Harmattan en 2014 « Monnaie et Finance : du boom au krach », j'ai la faiblesse de dire que j'ai prévu ce scénario. Ayant commencé ma carrière en 1980 chez un courtier parisien opérant sur les matières premières, j'ai toujours défendu l'idée que la spéculation est une constance qui domine dans la fixation des prix pétroliers. La 3 ème semaine de janvier 2016, le baril prenait 25% en quelques jours et perda 9% la semaine suivante. Cela n'a rien à voir avec le déséquilibre offre/demande. Ph. Chalmin, professeur à Paris-Dauphine et fondateur du groupe CyclOpe explique le plongeon de 38% des prix mondiaux en 2015 et la chute des cours du pétrole de 46% pour le Brent et 47% pour le WTI entre 2014 et 2015 par la sacro-sainte loi de l'offre et la demande. Mais le déséquilibre entre ces deux variables ne peut expliquer l'ampleur des fluctuations des prix. J'ai suggéré dans ma théorie des taux de change que les comportements spéculatifs sur les marchés amplifient les variations des fondamentaux monétaires. Ainsi si on considère le taux de change nominal comme suit : Txc= VRM+µ. Avec : VRM : la valeur relative de la monnaie A par rapport à la monnaie B qui incarne le rapport entre la valeur propre ou intrinsèque de la monnaie A et celle de la monnaie B. µ étant la variable explicative des mouvements spéculatifs, l'incertitude, On peut mettre en évidence l'écart entre le taux nominal, la valeur réelle des monnaies et l'impact de la spéculation. Dans le cas du pétrole je suis convaincu que la spéculation est la variable amplificatrice qui fait varier les prix dans tous les sens de façon exagérée. Sur le plan fondamental stricto sensu le marché pétrolier pourrait se rééquilibrer aisément par une substitution partielle du charbon par le pétrole en Chine, par une guerre qui diminue la production d'un ou plusieurs pays ou par le désinvestissement de compagnies jugeant les prix en dessous des coûts de production. Or malgré la tension Iran-Arabie saoudite et les conflits au Moyen-Orient et en Libye sans parler

The Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Division series publishes reviews and analyses of sector experience from around the world as well as new findings from analytical work. It places particular emphasis on how the experience and knowledge gained relates to developing country policy makers, communities affected by extractive industries, extractive industry enterprises, and civil society organizations. We hope to see this series inform a wide range of interested parties on the opportunities as well as the risks presented by the sector.