We investigate the cyclical component dynamics of US macroeconomic variables and oil benchmark prices in a regime-switching environment. We compare two different oil benchmark cycles, and the results indicate that WTI and Brent are not perfect substitutes in the US economy when it comes to...

The oil market is characterized by several hundreds of different grades of crude extracted from various locations on the planet, but prices of those grades are structured with reference to only a handful of benchmark varieties. In this context, the ability to predict near term benchmark oil...