A Study On The Impact Of Economic Policy Uncertainty On The International Crude Oil Futures Price

Crude oil,as a special commodity with commodity attributes,financial attributes and scarcity of strategic resources at the same time,is of great importance in the international futures market.In recent years,crude oil futures prices have experienced sharp fluctuations,which have seriously disrupted the order of world economic activities.At the same time,the sluggish economic situation and frequent trade wars have increased uncertainties around the world,making it difficult for the market’s automatic adjustment function to function normally.It is difficult for traditional price theories to explain the fluctuations of crude oil futures prices,and new price theories are urgently needed to explain the fluctuations of oil prices,and the trend of the economic policy uncertainty index,which measures uncertainty factors,seems to be related to the fluctuations of crude oil futures prices.Correlation connection provides the possibility for the research of this thesis.In this context,it is extremely important to explore the role of economic policy uncertainty on international crude oil futures prices,and the path analysis through which ways to affect oil prices.Studying the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the price fluctuations of international crude oil futures can better explain the influencing factors of international crude oil futures price in the context of the new international situation,and provide new perspectives for investors and policy makers to predict future fluctuations in crude oil futures prices.This thesis firstly defines the concept of economic policy uncertainty,and analyzes the characteristic facts of crude oil futures prices.Secondly,on the basis of storage theory,expected price theory,commodity futures risk premium theory and precautionary saving theory,analyzing the reasons for the fluctuation of crude oil futures prices,and analyze the impact path of economic policy uncertainty on international crude oil futures price from perspectives of anticipatory speculation,exchange rate,supply and demand.Finally,finding relevant data from the US Energy Information Administration,the US Federal Reserve Bank and other databases,select the monthly data of international crude oil futures prices and global economic policy uncertainty index from January 2010 to May2021,based on the structural vector autoregressive model,exploring the general impact on international crude oil futures prices from the perspectives of supply and demand factors,financial speculative factors,uncertainty,and the US dollar index.Analysing the impact mechanism of economic policy uncertainty on WTI crude oil futures price from the perspectives of expectations,exchange rates and supply and demand.After theoretical mechanism analysis and empirical research,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)economic policy uncertainty significantly affects the fluctuation of international crude oil futures prices,the impact is negative,and the transmission of the impact has a time lag,and the impact significantly exceeds the fundamentals of supply and demand.(2)Based on the research in this thesis,speculative factors and crude oil inventories of OECD member countries also play a role in affecting the international crude oil futures price,mainly because of the accelerated financialization and excess commercial inventories.The innovation of this study is mainly to provide a new perspective to explain the fluctuation of international crude oil futures prices,and to take into account the influence of variables in the same period,the structural VAR model is adopted.