imbalances peak oil crisis

Global Imbalances, Peak Oil, and the Next Economic Crisis?

Dr. Minqi Li, Assistant Professor

Department of Economics, University of Utah

E-mail: minqi.li@economics.utah.edu

Webpage: www.econ.utah.edu/~mli

April 2011, Salt Lake City

Neoliberalism and Global Imbalances • Neoliberalism: insufficient effective demand / frequent, destructive financial crises • Stabilizing the neoliberal global economy: borrower of last resort • 1995-2007: US (debt-financed household consumption) • 2010-?: US (led by federal government deficit?) / China (led by investment?) • Peak Oil – The Next Global Economic Crisis?

Oil Price and Economic Growth, 1980-2009

(Dependent variable: logarithmic value of GDP)

World OECD Asia & Pacific

INTERCEPT 0.031

(0.002)***

0.025

(0.002)***

0.071

(0.003)***

OIL PRICE

(unit: $10)

-0.007

(0.003)**

-0.014

(0.003)***

0.001

(0.004)

R-square 0.143 0.417 0.002

Standard errors are in parentheses.

**Statistically significant at 5 percent level.

***Statistically significant at 1 percent level.

Data sources: World Bank, http://databank.worldbank.org; BP, Statistical Review of World

Energy 2010.

Oil Consumption, Oil Price, and GDP, 1980-2009

(Dependent variable: logarithmic value of Oil Consumption)

World OECD Asia & Pacific

INTERCEPT -0.013

(0.006)**

-0.011

(0.007)

0.004

(0.019)

OIL PRICE

(unit: $10)

-0.009

(0.003)***

-0.016

(0.006)***

-0.016

(0.006)***

GDP

(in logarithmic value)

0.722

(0.174)***

0.562

(0.263)***

0.612

(0.263)**

R-square 0.603 0.584 0.324

Standard errors are in parentheses.

**Statistically significant at 5 percent level.

***Statistically significant at 1 percent level.

Data sources: World Bank, http://databank.worldbank.org; BP, Statistical Review of World

Energy 2010.

Alternative Scenarios of Oil Consumption and Economic Growth

(Economic growth rates consistent with stable real oil price are reported)

Oil Consumption

Growth Rate

World OECD Asia & Pacific

-2% -1.6%

-1% 0.4% 0.2%

0% 1.8% 2.0%

1% 3.2% 3.7%

2% 4.6% 2.6%

3% 4.2%

4% 5.9%

5% 7.5%