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윌리엄 풀 총재, '에너지가격과 미국 경기주기" 연설(원문)

기사입력 : 2007년03월03일 13:17

최종수정 : 2007년03월03일 13:17

Energy Prices and the U.S. Business Cycle

William Poole*
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Global Interdependence Center (GIC) Abroad in Chile Conference
American Chamber of Commerce in Chile Breakfast
Santiago, Chile
March 2, 2007

*I appreciate comments provided by my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Edward Nelson, assistant vice president, provided special assistance. I take full responsibility for errors. The views expressed are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System.

Energy Prices and the U.S. Business Cycle

A staple of the macroeconomics literature is that energy price shocks have been an important contributor to U.S. recessions. The situation is clearly more complicated than the common macro textbook exercise of using standard diagrams to work out the effects of an energy shock. Recent experience with a near tripling of oil prices from mid 2003 to mid 2006 without a recession suggests the need to review the conventional wisdom. One of my messages will be that the conventional wisdom fails to consider the fact that previous oil price shocks occurred when the U.S. economy was already suffering from substantial inflation pressures, whereas the recent run-up of oil prices has occurred in an economy with substantial overall price stability and entrenched, low inflation expectations.

Before I dig into the issue of the extent of causality between oil price shocks and recessions, I want to emphasize that the views I express here are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System. I thank my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for their comments; Ed Nelson, asistant vice president, provided special assistance. However, I retain full responsibility for errors.
The Debate

The historical record since 1970 provides some perspective on the relationship between oil prices and the business cycle. The figure (at end of text) plots the U.S. benchmark oil price (the West Texas intermediate spot price), both in nominal terms (i.e., current U.S. dollars) and real terms (i.e., deflated by the CPI so as to be in constant 1982-84 dollars) since 1970. Shaded regions denote U.S. recessions, as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research. These include the recession of 1973-75, associated with the oil price shock of 1973-74, the recessions of 1980 and 1981-82, preceded by the second oil shock in 1979, and the recession of 1990-91, also associated with a large, but more transitory, oil price increase of about 75 percent in 1990-91. There are also more drawn-out but steep oil increases in 1999-2000 and 2003-2006. The presence of the recession bars in the graph brings out what Hamilton and Herrera (2004, p. 265) observe is “a correlation between increases in oil prices and subsequent economic downturns.” In particular, recessions began in the United States within a year of the 1973, 1979 and 1990 oil price increases.

There has been much debate on how much of this link between recessions and prior oil price increases should be attributed to the powerful effect of oil shocks on the economy, and how much reflects a third factor—more restrictive monetary policy imposed at roughly the same time as the oil shocks. But I would draw attention to another aspect of the relationship between the business cycle and oil prices highlighted by the figure. The United States has never had an energy price spike occur in the middle of a recession, or immediately following a recession when unemployment is still relatively high. This fact suggests two properties of large oil price increases that are useful to keep in mind. First, very sharp increases in oil prices that we have observed historically, while undoubtedly reflecting exogenous supply disruptions to some degree, also reflect the strength of the economy at the time. Secondly, the casual association often made, based on the 1970s experience, between oil price increases and high inflation, is largely misguided because the large oil price increases of the 1970s occurred against the background of cyclical expansions that had gone too far.

The 1973 and 1979 episodes did not feature inflationary spirals triggered by the oil shocks. Instead, they are characterized by preexisting, general inflationary pressures that an alternative monetary policy could have avoided. The first oil shock in 1973 occurred against a background of clear economic overheating in the United States. U.S. monetary policy was very expansionary in 1971 and 1972, leading to excessive growth of aggregate demand that, even in the presence of price controls, spilled over into rising inflation in 1973. By October 1973—that is, the month of the first oil shock, but largely before its impact could be felt in the CPI—inflation had reached 8.1 percent on a 12-month basis, a sharp rise from the 3.2 percent rate over the 12 months ending in October 1972. Annual CPI inflation subsequently rose to 11.8 percent in October 1974 and peaked at 12.2 percent in November 1974.

Similarly, in the wake of several years of expanding demand, inflation rose throughout most of 1977 and 1978, well before the second oil shock, and the 12-month rate stood at 9.3 percent in January 1979, 2.5 percentage points above its value of January 1978. Inflation subsequently peaked at 14.6 percent in March 1980. Even the 1990 oil price spike occurred late in a long economic expansion, with annual inflation having stood above 4 percent since mid-1988. In July 1990, the 12-month CPI inflation rate was 4.8 percent, too high to correspond to price stability and not far below the July 1989 value of 5.1 percent. Following the oil shock that began in August 1990, inflation peaked at 6.4 percent in October 1990.

The strength of the economy at the time of the three oil shocks is also reflected in the unemployment rate. In October 1973, the seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate stood at 4.6 percent, its lowest rate since early 1970; in January 1979 it was 5.9 percent, close to its trough for the late 1970s expansion; and in July 1990, unemployment was 5.5 percent, above its March 1989 low of 5.0 percent, but still lower than its value in any month in the years 1975-1987.

This emphasis on the link between the state of the business cycle and the strength of oil prices may seem surprising. Many of the well-known spikes in the oil price are associated with exogenous events on the supply side: for example, OPEC’s quadrupling of the oil price in late 1973 in the wake of the Middle East war; OPEC’s doubling of the oil price in 1979 following the revolution in Iran; and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. These events were certainly major supply-side disruptions. But even a cartel like OPEC that administers the price of its product cannot ignore market conditions. In particular, a reason why OPEC was able to sustain the very large 1973 oil price increase for so long was because world demand for oil was underpinned by rapid expansion of aggregate demand in key markets in Europe, Japan and the United States. Indeed, some analysts of the 1973 oil shock have cast doubt on whether the oil price increase of 1973 can be considered an exogenous event at all; Barsky and Kilian (2001) argue that it was a delayed response to long-term demand developments in the oil market, combined with a response to contemporaneous buoyant world demand conditions.(1) We do not have to go this far, however, to recognize that there was a significant endogenous component to the oil price increases in 1973 and 1979 due to demand factors, reflecting an overheating of the U.S. economy which coincided with boom conditions in other advanced economies.
Oil Prices and Inflation

Members of the FOMC, as well as monetary policy makers in Europe and the United Kingdom, have spoken about oil prices and inflation on many occasions in recent years. Despite differences in emphasis, a clear proposition runs through these discussions: Irrespective of the behavior of oil prices, we can be confident that monetary policy oriented to price stability will deliver control over inflation over the medium term. It is worth spelling out this proposition in some detail.

The reason why price stability is not contingent on oil price behavior is that inflation is a sustained rise in the general level of prices. The price of oil enters heavily into a particular category of consumer prices—gasoline prices—and indirectly into the prices of many other products. It is possible for the price of energy-intensive goods to change relative to a general index of prices; in fact, such relative-price movements are part of the everyday workings of a market economy. And, over periods of, say, a year or more it is possible for monetary policy to secure low inflation—which means low growth rates in indexes of overall prices—even when energy price inflation is high. Over time, the general level of prices responds to the supply-demand imbalance in the economy: that is, to longer-term movement in total spending in the economy relative to long-run supply potential. Monetary policy actions affect the total volume of spending, and so can influence the balance between aggregate demand and supply. By keeping aggregate demand in balance with aggregate supply, monetary policy can create conditions for general price stability, even if certain components in the price index are persistently increasing.

Two aspects of this picture are worth emphasizing. First, the overall price level is susceptible to influence by monetary policy even if the price of oil, or other commodities, is being driven by exogenous supply events. That is why Milton Friedman could advance his proposition that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” even though he acknowledged that the 1973 OPEC shock had produced a “drastic alteration in the conditions of supply of crude oil.”(2) The general trend of prices is distinct from the behavior of a single price in the index or subset of the index. Inflation is always an endogenous variable in the medium term, whatever exogenous shocks are affecting its components in the short term.

Secondly, monetary policymakers often pay attention to “core” measures of prices that exclude energy and food prices. This focus does not, however, mean that policymakers’ concept of price stability refers only to a basket of goods that excludes energy-intensive items. The overall cost of living is what matters for welfare, so stability over time in indexes that include energy is desirable. But because the price of gasoline is volatile, it is often desirable to “see through” very short-term movements in consumer prices, and work out what is happening to the underlying trend of prices. Looking at core measures of inflation can be useful for this purpose. Indeed core and aggregate inflation clearly move together over longer periods. That said, during periods of sustained increases in relative energy prices, general price stability requires that price indexes that exclude energy will need to grow more slowly than the aggregate price index; over this period, achievement of inflation at a desirable level means that core inflation, on average, proceeds below the overall level of inflation.

Thirdly, an oil price increase may reduce aggregate supply and policymakers also need to take this fact into account in keeping demand and supply in balance. This issue is most prominent when the oil price change is permanent and when the economy’s technology is very energy-intensive on average. The 1973 oil shock, for example, was long-lasting and took place at a time when U.S. production was very energy-inefficient. Potential output thus fell substantially. The economy was already overheated by 1973; so, some reining in of spending by monetary policy was justified even before the oil shock; but once the oil shock took place, monetary policy needed to tighten, just to keep supply and demand from going further into imbalance. That is, it was necessary to let actual output fall with the decline in potential output. From this perspective, Hamilton and Herrera (2004) are not necessarily posing the right question when they ask how much of a monetary policy loosening would have been required to avoid a recession after the 1973 oil shock. The supply shock alone justified a monetary policy tightening on stabilization grounds.

In recent years, on the other hand, the circumstances of the 1973 oil shock have not been repeated. The economy has not been overheated; the economy is more energy-efficient so the impact on supply of oil shocks has been moderated; and the more severe spikes in the oil price such as in summer 2006 have been recognized as transitory in nature. In these circumstances, monetary policy is in a much better position to support aggregate demand in the face of oil shocks without endangering medium-term price stability. This state of affairs has been emphasized by the Federal Reserve Chairman in his discussion of the effect of oil shocks (Bernanke, 2006).

In summary, maintenance of low inflation over a period of several years or more is achievable whatever happens to oil prices. The same was true in the 1970s, and the fact that inflation was high on average reflected over-expansionary monetary policy, not the oil shocks.
Recent Oil Price Increases

The oil price increase in 2003-2006 is in line with the earlier pattern that surges in oil prices occur during economic expansions. Indeed, recent increases are more clearly a demand phenomenon than the previous increases. Energy prices in recent years have been driven by demand rather than supply. The source of this demand is unusual compared to the past, with a smaller contribution of U.S. demand and a much larger contribution of China. China’s net imports of oil were projected to be 2.3 percent of its GDP in 2006 compared to 0.9 percent in 2002 (IMF, 2006, p. 31). A longer-term perspective is given by the fact that China’s share of world demand for oil is estimated to have risen from 3.5 percent in 1990 to around 8.2 percent in 2006 (Weber, 2006). This increase reflects the rapid growth and industrialization of China in the past fifteen years, as well as the use of production technology that is, on average, energy-inefficient compared to the United States.
Conclusions

Without question, energy supply shocks are disruptive, but they need not create recessions. Indeed, there is a more general lesson from experience with oil price shocks. Monetary policy should not allow an economy to operate at the edge of a cliff. When balanced precariously at the edge of a cliff, even a minor disturbance, oil or otherwise, may be sufficient to push the economy over the edge. Although an outside shock may be the catalyst, or trigger, that creates undue inflation pressures, the fundamental problem is not the catalyst but the powerful and risky brew of an overheated economy. To use another analogy, if someone opens gas jets and fills a house with gas, do we blame the explosion on the person who lights the match or the person who opened the jets? I know where I want to place the blame.


Footnotes

1. See Hamilton (2003, pp. 388-89) for a rebuttal of Barsky and Kilian’s (2001) position that the 1973-74 oil price increase did not incorporate a major exogenous supply shift.

2. Friedman and Schwartz (1982, p. 414).


References

Barsky, Robert B., and Lutz Kilian (2001). “Do We Really Know That Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative,” NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Vol. 16(1), 137-183.

Bernanke, Ben S. (2006). “Energy and the Economy.” Remarks before the Economic Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, June 15.

Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz (1982). Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hamilton, James D. (2003). “What Is an Oil Shock?,” Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 113(2), 363-398.

Hamilton, James D., and Ana Maria Herrera (2004). “Oil Shocks and Aggregate Macroeconomic Behavior: The Role of Monetary Policy,” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 36(2), 265-286.

International Monetary Fund (2006). People’s Republic of China—Article IV Consultation: Staff Report. Washington, D.C.

Weber, Axel A. (2006). “Oil Price Shocks and Monetary Policy in the Euro Area.” Whitaker Lecture by President of the Deutsche Bundesbank.


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실적 발표 앞두고 '6만 전자'도 위태 [서울=뉴스핌] 서영욱 기자 = 잇단 악재에 3분기 실적도 예상치를 밑돌 것이란 전망이 나오면서 삼성전자에 이를 만회할 '깜짝 카드'가 필요하다는 목소리가 나오고 있다. 예컨대 'HBM3E 엔비디아 퀄 테스트 통과'와 같은 기술 경쟁력을 회복할 수 있는 신호와 혁신이 필요한 시점이다. 서울 서초구 삼성전자 서초사옥의 모습. [사진=뉴스핌DB] ◆장밋빛 흐려지는 3분기 실적…증권가 실적 전망치 하향 조정 4일 금융정보업체 에프앤가이드에 따르면 삼성전자의 올 3분기 예상 매출액과 영업이익은 각각 약 81조원과 11조원이다. 워낙 시장이 좋지 않았던 지난해 3분기와 비교하면서 영업실적이 크게 개선된 것으로 읽힌다. 지난해 3분기 67조4047억원의 매출과 2조4335억원의 영업이익을 달성한 것과 비교하면 매출액은 20.9%, 영업이익은 4배 가까이 증가한 금액이다. 하지만 3분기 영업이익이 한 때 14조원에 이를 것이란 당초 전망치에서 비하면 한참 미치지 못하는 수치다. 실제로 이날 삼성전자의 3분기 실적 전망치를 하향 조정한 IBK투자증권의 경우 "가장 큰 변수는 디바이스솔루션(DS)사업부 일회성 비용과 원/달러 환율 하락"이라고 분석했다. IBK투자증권은 삼성전자 3분기 매출액을 기존 82조9520억원에서 80조3470억원으로, 영업이익은 기존 13조1480억원에서 10조1580억원으로 각각 3.1% 22.7% 낮췄다. DS사업부 매출액에서 D램 가격 상승에 대한 영향을 축소했다. PC, 모바일 가격이 예상 대비 부진하고, 기대했던 제품믹스 개선효과가 크지 않을 것이란 예상에서다. 디스플레이 사업부의 매출도 하향 조정했는데 "기대했던 IT OLED 패널이 예상에 비해서 부진할 것"으로 추정했다. ◆HBM 경쟁력 여전히 물음표…해외에선 인력감축 설까지 겹악재에 빠진 삼성전자는 실적 부진까지 예상되면서 주가가 맥을 못추고 있다. 지난 2일 장중 한 때 5만원대로 밀려나면서 52주 최저가를 경신하기도 했다. 주가가 6만원을 밑돈 건 지난해 3월 16일 이후 약 1년 7개월만이다. 모간스탠리에 이어 맥쿼리를 비롯한 글로벌 투자은행들이 반도체 사업을 중심으로 부진이 이어지며 목표 주가를 반토막 낸 영향이 컸다. D램 등 메모리 공급과잉에 따른 판매가격 하락이 실적 둔화로 이어질 수 있다는 전망에서다. 특히 기술 경쟁력 회복이 뒤처지고 있다는 점에 대한 우려가 크다. 엔비디아에 고대역폭메모리(HBM) 납품을 시작했다는 공식적인 언급이 늦어지고 있는 데다, 중국 당국이 엔비디아의 H20 대신 중국산 AI 칩을 구매하도록 압력을 넣으면서 중국용 중저가 HBM을 납품하는 삼성이 타격을 받을 것이란 전망도 이어지고 있다. 해외 사업장에서는 동남아와 호주, 뉴질랜드에서 약 10% 인력 감축을 진행한다는 해외 언론의 보도가 나왔고, 인도에서는 임금 문제로 인한 파업으로 생산에 차질을 빚고 있다. 삼성전자 4일 양산을 발표한 업계 최고 성능∙최대 용량의 PC용 SSD PM9E1 [사진=삼성전자] ◆지나친 우려 과도한 평가절하…"기술력으로 증명해야" 업계에서 연매출이 300조원, 영업이익만 수십조원에 달하는 거대 기업 삼성전자에 대한 우려가 지나치다는 목소리가 크다. 우선 모간스탠리가 제시한 '반도체 겨울론'은 마이크론과 SK하이닉스에 의해 일부 뒤집힌 바 있다. 마이크론은 지난달 3분기 실적을 발표하면서 HBM 제품이 올해와 내년 모두 완판됐다고 발표, AI 반도체 수요가 지속될 것임을 확인시켰다. SK하이닉스는 5세대 HBM인 HBM3E 12단을 세계 최초로 양산하기 시작했고, 이 제품은 엔비디아의 AI 칩 H200에 탑재될 예정이다. 해외 사업장의 인력 감축도 "통상적인 인력 효율화 작업의 일환"이라며 급격한 사업 전환은 없을 것이란 점을 상기시켰다. 메모리 1위 업체에 대한 지나친 우려를 불식시키기 위해서는 기술 경쟁력의 회복이 시급하다고 보고 있다. 이건희 선대회장의 프랑크푸르트 선언처럼 이재용 회장의 결단이 필요하다는 시점이다. 김록호 하나증권 연구원은 "국내 경쟁사 대비 주가 열위는 HBM의 경쟁력 때문"이라며 "결자해지 측면에서 삼성전자의 실적이나 주가가 차별화 되려면 HBM의 경쟁력 입증이 필요하다"고 전했다. 반도체업계 관계자는 "삼성전자가 엔비디아에 HBM3E를 납품한다는 소식이 공식화된다면 기술 경쟁력의 신뢰 회복과 주가 상승에 영향을 줄 수 있다"며 "다만 실제 납품 규모는 크지 않을 가능성이 높아 당장 실적에 큰 기여를 하지 않을 수 있다"고 말했다.  syu@newspim.com 2024-10-04 14:23
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레바논 긴급 방문 이란 외무가 한 말 [서울=뉴스핌] 고인원 기자= 압바스 아락치 이란 외무부 장관이 4일(현지 시간) 이스라엘의 공습을 받고 있는 레바논을 예고 없이 방문해 이스라엘이 재보복에 나설 경우 좌시하지 않겠다고 경고했다. 아락치 장관은 이날 오전 레바논 수도 베이루트의 라피크 하리리 국제공항으로 입국해 나지브 미카티 총리 등 레바논 정부 지도부를 만났다. 지도부와의 회동을 마친 장관은 베이루트에서 기자회견을 열어 "이스라엘이 우리에게 어떤 조치나 행동을 취한다면, 우리의 보복은 이전보다 더 강력할 것"이라며 이스라엘의 재보복 움직임에 경고했다. 압바스 아락치 이란 외무장관[사진=로이터 뉴스핌] koinwon@newspim.com 그는 이어 "이란은 공습을 계속할 의도가 없다"면서도 "시온주의 정권(이스라엘)이 이란을 겨냥한 일말의 행동에 나선다면 분명히 대응할 것"이라고 강조했다. 자국의 이스라엘 공습에 대해서는 "우리가 공격을 시작한 것이 아니다"면서 "이란 영토와 (시리아 수도) 다마스쿠스의 이란 대사관 등에 대한 이스라엘의 공격에 대응해 군사·안보 시설을 합법적으로 타격했다"고 주장했다. 또한 "이스라엘과 헤즈볼라 간 휴전을 위한 어떤 움직임도 이란은 지지하지만, 가자지구의 휴전과 동시에 이뤄져야 한다"고 덧붙였다. 이번 긴급 방문은 중동 '저항의 축'의 주축인 이란이 지난 1일 이스라엘에 탄도 미사일 약 180발을 쏘며 대규모 공습을 가한 후 이스라엘이 재보복에 나설 것이라 천명한 가운데 이뤄졌다. 이란 고위 관리가 레바논을 찾은 것은 지난달 27일 이스라엘군의 베이루트 공습으로 헤즈볼라 수장 하산 나스랄라가 사망한 이후 처음이다. 이스라엘은 지난달 23일 '북쪽의 화살' 작전 개시를 선언하고 레바논 남부 등에 대규모 공습을 진행해 왔다. 이어 27일에는 헤즈볼라 최고 지도자인 하산 나스랄라를 표적 공습, 살해한 데 이어 30일에는 레바논 남부에 병력을 투입하며 2006년 이후 18년 만에 처음으로 지상전에 돌입했다. 이에 이란은 지난 1일 이스라엘에 탄도 미사일을 발사하고 하마스 수장 이스마일 하니야, 헤즈볼라 수장 하산 나스랄라와 이란 혁명수비대 작전 부사령관 아바스 닐포루샨의 죽음에 대한 보복이라고 밝혔다. koinwon@newspim.com 2024-10-05 00:09
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