Do consumer price indices in oil-producing economies respond differently to oil market shocks? Evidence from Canada

Abstract

Using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, we demonstrate that the response of consumer prices in oil-producing Canadian provinces to oil market shocks is similar to that of consumer prices in non-oil-producing provinces, though the magnitudes and durations vary. In particular, the effects of oil supply and oil-specific demand shocks lead to significant consumer price increases while unanticipated expansions in global demand only lead to modest increases in consumer prices across both sets of provinces. Our results suggest that oil market shocks are transmitted from consumer prices in oil-producing provinces to non-oil-producing ones largely through changes in the labor market. Further, we find that roughly 41% of the long-run variation in consumer price inflation in oil-producing provinces is attributable to oil market shocks while it is about 46% in non-oil-producing provinces on average. Finally, we show that historically, oil market shocks have contributed to fluctuations in consumer price inflation in each province with different signs at different points in time. Consequently, our results suggest that policymakers should pay close attention to the effects of oil market shocks on subnational consumer prices in order to curb the impacts of adverse supply shocks and to mediate demand-side forces.