Middle East Economic Survey

VOL. XLVII

No 35

30-August-2004

Economists Challenge Causal Link Between Oil Shocks And Recessions

The widely-held belief in a causal link between oil price shocks and economic recessions has been challenged by economists Robert Barsky and Lutz Kilian in a paper entitledOil and the Macroeconomy Since the 1970s published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. (The full paper is available atwww.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP4496.asp). The perception that oil price spikes have...