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윌리엄 풀 총재, '에너지가격과 미국 경기주기" 연설(원문)

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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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[써보니] 트라이폴드 태블릿과 다르다 [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자가 2일 공개한 3단 폴더블폰 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'를 현장에서 직접 사용해보니 예상보다 가볍고 얇은 형태가 먼저 느껴졌다. 크기와 구조상 무게가 상당할 것이란 우려가 있었지만, 실제로 들어보면 생각보다 부담이 덜한 편이다. 다만 한 손으로 오래 들고 쓰기에는 다소 무리가 있고, 전용 케이스나 거치대를 함께 사용할 때 가장 안정적인 사용감이 나온다. 펼친 화면은 태블릿을 떠올리게 할 만큼 넓고 시원하지만, 두 번 접어 휴대할 수 있다는 점은 기존 태블릿과 확실히 다른 경험을 만든다. 동시에 두께·베젤 등 초기 모델의 구조적 한계도 분명히 느껴졌다. ◆ 10형 대화면의 시원함…멀티태스킹 활용도↑ 가장 인상적인 요소는 화면을 펼쳤을 때의 시야다. 10형 대화면은 영상 시청 시 몰입감이 크고 웹 검색·문서 작업에서도 확 트인 느낌을 준다.  [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'를 다 펼친 모습. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'로 3앱 멀티태스킹을 진행하는 모습. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com 특히 최대 3개의 앱을 동시에 띄워놓는 멀티태스킹 기능은 생산성 관점에서 기존 폴더블보다 한 단계 더 진화했다는 느낌이 강했다. 세 개의 스마트폰 화면을 한 번에 펼쳐 놓은 듯한 넓이가 확보돼, 동시에 여러 작업을 처리하기에 충분한 공간감이 느껴졌다. 이메일·인터넷·메모장 등 업무 앱을 한 화면에서 자연스럽게 배치할 수 있고, 영상 콘텐츠를 켜둔 채 작업을 이어가는 것도 충분히 가능하다. [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'로 영상 시청을 하는 모습. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com ◆ 구조에서 오는 한계도 분명…베젤·힌지·두께는 '새로운 폼팩터의 숙제' 새로운 구조 특성상 아쉬운 부분도 있다. 우선 베젤이 비교적 두꺼운 편이다. 화면을 여러 번 접는 구조라 물리적 여유 공간 확보가 필수적이다 보니 테두리가 두드러져 보인다. 상단 롤러(힌지 유닛 일부로 보이는 구조물)도 시각적으로는 다소 낯설게 느껴진다. 화면 연결부 자체는 자연스럽지만, 힌지 구조물 자체는 어색하게 보일 수 있다. [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'를 닫은 모습. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com 또 하나는 완전히 접었을 때의 두께감이다. 구조상 여러 패널이 겹치는 형태라 다 접어놓으면 두껍게 느껴지는 것은 불가피하다. 다만 이는 구조에 따른 필연적인 결과로, 사용성에 치명적일 정도의 부담은 아니었다. [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'는 왼쪽 화면부터 닫아야 한다. 반대로 닫으려 할 시 경고 알람이 울린다. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com 또 하나 눈에 띄는 점은 접는 순서가 고정돼 있다는 점이다. 오른쪽→왼쪽 순으로 접도록 설계돼, 반대로 접으려 하면 경고 알람이 울린다. 폼팩터 특성상 불가피한 방식이지만, 초기에 적응 과정이 필요하다. ◆ 태블릿과 겹치는 모습…그러나 휴대성이라는 확실한 차별점 사용 경험을 종합하면 '트라이폴드'는 태블릿과 유사한 역할을 상당 부분 수행한다. 대화면 기반의 콘텐츠 소비·문서 작업·멀티 환경 등 핵심 사용성은 태블릿과 맞닿아 있다. [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 삼성전자 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'가 거치대에 놓인 모습. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com 그러나 폴더블 구조로 접어서 주머니·가방에 넣을 수 있다는 점은 태블릿이 따라올 수 없는 차별점이다. 이동이 잦은 사용자에게는 '태블릿과 스마트폰의 중간 지점'에 있는 새로운 선택지가 될 수 있다. 강민석 모바일경험(MX)사업부 스마트폰PP팀장(부사장)은 "태블릿은 주머니에 넣고 다닐 수 없다. 태블릿은 대화면 그 자체의 장점이 있지만, 트라이폴드는 두께·무게 측면에서 소비자가 어디든 가져갈 수 있다는 점에서 혁신을 만들었다"며 "트라이폴드는 기존 태블릿과는 차원이 다른 새로운 카테고리라고 믿는다"고 말했다. ◆ 가격은 부담되지만…경쟁사 대비 '상대적 우위' 가격은 여전히 소비자에게 큰 장벽이다. 출고가 359만400원은 스마트폰 범주에서 결코 가볍지 않은 금액이다. 다만 경쟁사 제품들과의 상대 비교에서는 다른 해석도 가능하다. 중국 화웨이는 올해 출시한 트라이폴드폰을 1만7999위안(약 350만 원)부터 책정했다. 고용량 모델로 갈 경우 2만1999위안(약 429만 원)까지 올라간다. [서울=뉴스핌] 김정인 기자 = 임성택 삼성전자 한국총괄 부사장이 '갤럭시 Z 트라이폴드'를 소개하고 있다. 2025.12.02 kji01@newspim.com 이 기준에서 보면 삼성의 359만 원대 가격은 화웨이 평균 가격보다 낮은 편으로 비교된다. 특히 고용량 기준 화웨이 최고가와의 비교에서는 약 70만 원 가까운 차이가 나, '삼성이 가격 경쟁력까지 고려했다'는 해석이 가능하다. 또 시장에서는 출시 전부터 트라이폴드 구조상 부품 단가가 높아 400만 원 안팎이 될 것이라는 전망이 우세했다. 실제 출고가는 이 예상보다 낮게 형성되면서, 삼성이 새로운 카테고리 안착을 위해 가격선을 일정 수준까지 조정했다는 평가도 나온다. kji01@newspim.com 2025-12-02 11:48
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박대준 쿠팡 대표 "'자발적 배상도 고려" [서울=뉴스핌] 남라다 기자 = 박대준 쿠팡 대표가 "패스키 한국 도입을 검토하겠다"고 밝혔다. 박 대표는 3일 국회 정무위원회 현안질의에서 "한국 쿠팡에서 패스키를 도입할 계획이 있나"라는 이헌승 국민의힘 의원 질의에 이같이 답변했다. [서울=뉴스핌] 윤창빈 기자 = 박대준 쿠팡 대표이사가 3일 서울 여의도 국회 정무위원회에서 열린 쿠팡 개인정보 유출 관련 현안질의에서 의원 질문에 답변하고 있다. pangbin@newspim.com 이 의원은 "대만 쿠팡에서 글로벌 기준에 부합하는 전용 패스키 기술을 독자 개발하고 보급했다"며 "한국에 패스키를 도입했다면 이런 사고가 일어났겠냐"고 강하게 질타했다. 이어 "우리 대한민국에도 바로 대만처럼 대처할 수 있습니까"라고 따져물었다. 이 의원 질의에 박 대표는 "의원님 말씀에 공감하고 깊이 책임감 느끼고 있습니다"며 "조속히 (한국)에 도입될 수 있도록 검토하겠습니다"고 말했다. 소송을 통한 배상 대신 자발적으로 배상 조치하라는 질의에 대해 "적극적으로 검토하겠다"고 전했다. nrd@newspim.com 2025-12-03 15:54
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