Research shows Obama wrong on oil speculators
A large number of scientific studies have failed to produce any credible evidence that high oil and gas prices were caused by the presence of financial investors in oil futures markets.
By Mark J. Perry
Economics professor Lutz Killian, University of Michigan, has a research paper titled “The Role of Speculation in Oil Markets: What Have We Learned So Far?” co-authored with Bassam Fattouh and Lavan Mahadeva, here’s the abstract (emphasis added):
“A popular view is that the surge in the price of oil during 2003-08 cannot be explained by economic fundamentals, but was caused by the increased financialization of oil futures markets, which in turn allowed speculation to become a major determinant of the spot price of oil. This interpretation has been driving policy efforts to regulate oil futures markets. This survey reviews the evidence supporting this view. We identify six strands in the literature corresponding to different empirical methodologies and discuss to what extent each approach sheds light on the role of speculation. We find that the existing evidence is not supportive of an important role of speculation in driving the spot price of oil after 2003. Instead, there is strong evidence that the co-movement between spot and futures prices reflects common economic fundamentals rather than the financialization of oil futures markets.”
Here’s the conclusion from a related, slightly less academic article by Professor Killian on the same topic (emphasis added):
“The Obama administration is mistaken in attributing high oil and gas prices to the presence of financial investors in oil futures markets. A popular view among pundits and policymakers has been that the sustained oil price increase between 2003 and mid-2008 could not possibly be explained by economic fundamentals, but must have been brought about by financial investors taking speculative positions in oil futures markets. Recent research has not been kind to this hypothesis. A large number of scientific studies have failed to produce any credible evidence that high oil and gas prices were caused by the presence of financial investors in oil futures markets.
In fact, there are strong indications that recent oil price fluctuations were mainly associated with changes in the global business cycle. Notably, between 2003 and mid-2008, global demand for oil increased faster than global oil production, resulting in a sustained increase in the price of oil. Much of the additional demand for oil came from emerging Asia. No nefarious speculators are required to explain this surge in the price of oil. Indeed, oil futures prices responded to much the same economic forces as prices in the physical market.”
Bottom Line: Market forces, not speculators, are the main determinants of oil prices and all other commodity prices.
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