This paper evaluates alternative indicators of global economic activity and other market fundamentals in terms of their usefulness for forecasting real oil prices and global petroleum consumption. We find that world industrial production is one of the most useful indicators that has been...

A VAR model estimated on U.S. data before and after 1980 documents systematic differences in the response of short- and long-term interest rates, corporate bond spreads and durable spending to news TFP shocks. Interest rates across the maturity spectrum broadly increase in the pre-1980s and...