Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.

The effects of stochastic future oil prices on optimal oil extraction paths and optimal tax, spending and government debt policies are analyzed when demand for oil is linear and preferences quadratic. Without prudence, optimal oil extraction is governed by the Hotelling rule and optimal budgetary po...

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Main Author: Ploeg, F
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: OxCarre 2009
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author Ploeg, F
author_facet Ploeg, F
author_sort Ploeg, F
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description The effects of stochastic future oil prices on optimal oil extraction paths and optimal tax, spending and government debt policies are analyzed when demand for oil is linear and preferences quadratic. Without prudence, optimal oil extraction is governed by the Hotelling rule and optimal budgetary policies by the tax smoothing principle. With prudence, the government depletes oil reserves more aggressively and engages in precautionary saving financed by postponing spending and bringing taxes forward, especially if it has substantial monopoly power on the oil market, gives high priority to the public spending target and is very prudent, and future oil demand has high variance. If the oil market is fairly competitive, prudent governments deliberately under‐estimate oil reserves and under‐predict future oil prices. This leads to less aggressive oil depletion and less government saving. However, if the government attaches high priority to raising public spending to its bliss level, prudence implies a tendency to over‐predict future oil prices and reserves which induces more aggressive oil depletion and more government saving. Uncertain economic prospects induce precautionary saving and more aggressive oil extraction.
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spelling oxford-uuid:6ae01a1e-7e49-4a83-8da6-2de176e19f2d2022-03-26T19:00:10ZAggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:6ae01a1e-7e49-4a83-8da6-2de176e19f2dEnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsOxCarre2009Ploeg, FThe effects of stochastic future oil prices on optimal oil extraction paths and optimal tax, spending and government debt policies are analyzed when demand for oil is linear and preferences quadratic. Without prudence, optimal oil extraction is governed by the Hotelling rule and optimal budgetary policies by the tax smoothing principle. With prudence, the government depletes oil reserves more aggressively and engages in precautionary saving financed by postponing spending and bringing taxes forward, especially if it has substantial monopoly power on the oil market, gives high priority to the public spending target and is very prudent, and future oil demand has high variance. If the oil market is fairly competitive, prudent governments deliberately under‐estimate oil reserves and under‐predict future oil prices. This leads to less aggressive oil depletion and less government saving. However, if the government attaches high priority to raising public spending to its bliss level, prudence implies a tendency to over‐predict future oil prices and reserves which induces more aggressive oil depletion and more government saving. Uncertain economic prospects induce precautionary saving and more aggressive oil extraction.
spellingShingle Ploeg, F
Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title_full Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title_fullStr Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title_full_unstemmed Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title_short Aggressive Oil Extraction and precautionary Saving: Coping with Volatility.
title_sort aggressive oil extraction and precautionary saving coping with volatility
work_keys_str_mv AT ploegf aggressiveoilextractionandprecautionarysavingcopingwithvolatility