| 摘要 | ��
Research Purpose
It is a very important research topic to evaluate the performance of oil price liberalization on domestic oil product price, oil consumption, and industrial activities. In order to study this topic, we have to understand the background and rationale of the oil price liberalization and how this deregulation is actually affecting the market. Also we need to find out what oil consumer, oil industry and the whole economy actually respond to this policy change. To answer these questions, this research follows the logical step to investigate the impact of international oil price to domestic oil product price, and in turn to the change of oil consumption, and finally to the change of industrial activities. Of course, the various changes of behavior and responses of economic agents themselves are not the sole objective of the oil price deregulation. However oil price liberalization was a shift of regulation regime, it surely had some impact on the behavior of economic agents. We will try to derive policy implications from the understanding on the economic impact of oil price liberalization.
Summary
In this report, the impact of oil price liberalization is analyzed on three sequential economic processes, such as on oil price, on oil consumption, and on industrial activities.
Firstly, the change of domestic oil price setting behavior is compared between before-oil price liberalization period and after-oil price liberalization period. The change of domestic oil price were analyzed when two most important cost components of domestic oil price, crude oil import price and exchange rate, were changed. We can find that domestic oil product prices adjust more instantaneously and flexibly after the deregulation than before.
Also we tried to figure out whether the price adjustment to a cost change is symmetric or not. By comparing the price adjustment path when oil price go up and down separately, the implication on the intensity of oil market competitiveness and the route of cost transfer from refinery to final consumer can be derived.
Secondly, we analyzed the impact of oil price change on the energy consumption focusing on the oil products demand. Since oil price liberalization is likely to speed up the process of cost transfer, it will be worth while to investigating the responsiveness of oil demand to price changes.
Thirdly, change of oil demand pattern will presumably have impact on the actual industrial activities. Thus impulse responses of industrial production index, producer price index and export price index to the oil price change are compared between pre and after deregulation.
Research Results & Policy Suggestions
This study is motivated by the question of how the oil price liberalization changed the oil price setting behavior and other market characteristics.
Response of domestic oil product price to the change of crude oil import price and exchange rate
Impulse response of oil product price is estimated to investigate the impact of import cost change on oil product price. The different impulses between the regulation and the deregulation has clearly shown along all oil products. After oil price liberalization, it is commonly found that oil product prices are more instantaneously response to the change of oil import price (LFOB) than before. In addition, the response of oil product prices except gasoline appears more persistent during the liberalization period than during the regulation period.
In case of exchange rate, the response had been slow and persistent in the pre-liberalization period. It became quicker and shorter in the after-liberalization.
Irrespective of the causes of the cost change, oil price liberalization made price response more instantaneous and adjustment period shorter than before. It means oil price liberalization shortened the adjustment period of cost transfer and therefore, consumers get price signal more quickly from the market.
Asymmetry of price response between cost up and down
In the pre-liberalization period, we can not say that there exists asymmetry in price response to the cost change. On the contrary, we can find there is asymmetric price response especially to the crude import price change. After liberalization, oil refiners are more instantaneously adjust to the rise of import price and the magnitude of the upward adjustment became bigger than downward one. It implies that oil price liberalization magnifies the speed and magnitude of the adjustment, therefore, international crude oil price has more impact on the economy and the oil demand.
This asymmetric response holds both in refiner's price and in retail consumer price. It means the asymmetrical responses of refiners are more or less directly transferring to final consumer price without any significant changes in government tax or distributional margin.
Response of oil demand to price change
From the above difference in price response, we can presume that oil demand pattern also undergone some changes after the price liberalization. In order to confirm this possibility, we use VAR model to estimate impulse response function which consists of crude import price, individual oil product price, prices of substitutable fuels, and individual oil product demand. From these estimations, we confirm that individual oil product demand decreases more significantly in after liberalization period than before the period. It can be interpreted that oil demand became more sensitive to the international oil price change, and therefore the impact of international oil price change on domestic oil demand is strengthened. Also time lag from crude oil price change to oil demand change became shorter after the liberalization period than before the period. It seems that the quick response of domestic oil price change to the international crude oil price change simply caused this difference. In this sense, oil price liberalization making oil market more sensitive and prompt to cost transfer rather than making it more competitive.
Impact on industrial activities
In the pre-liberalization period, oil price shock had shown negative impact such as production decrease and/or demand shrink only in five manufacturing sectors [textile, cloth/fur, petrochemical, rubber/plastic, furniture/etc]. On the contrary, this negative impact is manifested in 14 manufacturing sectors. This is probably due to the change that oil price liberalization made price adjustment more instantaneous.
Also, supply side shock(production decrease) is often occurring in sectors which are characterized as more than average energy cost share. The paper and paper product industry is only exception which does not show supply side shock.
After the oil price liberalization, oil price shock has shown negative impact in more industries than before. But it is not necessarily implies that oil price liberalization affected this change. As pointed out in the international crude oil price trend, the duration of oil price increasing period becomes longer in after-liberalization period(1996~). This factor might contribute the fact that industrial activities become more sensitive to oil price shock. Also, we can not exclude the possibility that 1997 currency crisis might resulted structural change in manufacturing industries in various ways.
141 pages, 64 refs., 123 figs., 5 tabs., Language: Korean |
