NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES

OIL, AUTOMOBILES, AND THE U.S. ECONOMY:

HOW MUCH HAVE THINGS REALLY CHANGED?

Valerie A. Ramey

Daniel J. Vine

Working Paper 16067

http://www.nber.org/papers/w16067

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

1050 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

June 2010

The views expressed here are those of the authors and not those of the Board of Governors, or the

Federal Reserve System, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. Sam Ackerman provided

excellent research assistance. We are grateful for comments from Daron Acemoglu, Jordi Galí, George

Hall, James Hamilton, Chris Kurz, Ariel Pakes, and Garey Ramey, and we thank William Lee for sending

us his papers. We also thank participants at the 2008 International Society for Inventory Research

session, the NBER Twenty-fifth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics, and seminar participants

at Statistics Canada and UC San Diego. Valerie Ramey gratefully acknowledges financial support

from National Science Foundation grant SES-0617219 through the NBER.

NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official

NBER publications.

© 2010 by Valerie A. Ramey and Daniel J. Vine. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to

exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including

© notice, is given to the source.
Oil, Automobiles, and the U.S. Economy: How Much have Things Really Changed?

Valerie A. Ramey and Daniel J. Vine

NBER Working Paper No. 16067

June 2010, Revised July 2010

JEL No. E2,Q43

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the impact of oil shocks on the U.S. economy—and on the motor vehicle industry

in particular—and re-examines whether the relationship has changed over time. We find remarkable

stability in the response of aggregate real variables to oil shocks once we account for the extra costs

imposed on the economy in the 1970s by price controls and a complex system of entitlements that

led to some rationing and shortages. To investigate further why the response of real variables to oil

shocks has not declined over time, we focus on the motor vehicle industry, which is considered the

most important channel through which oil shocks affect the economy. We find that, contrary to common

perceptions, the share of motor vehicles in total U.S. goods production has shown little decline over

time. Moreover, within the motor vehicle industry, the effects of oil shocks on the mix of vehicleVROG

and on capacity utilization appear to have been proportional in recent decades to the effects observed

in the 1970s.

Valerie A. Ramey

Department of Economics, 0508

University of California, San Diego

9500 Gilman Drive

La Jolla, CA 92093-0508

and NBER

VRAMEY@UCSD.EDU

Daniel J. Vine

)HGHUDO5HVHUYH%RDUG

20th Street and Constitution Ave. NW

Mail Stop 82

Washington, DC 20551

daniel.j.vine@frb.gov
Introduction 

Between 2002 and mid-2008, the average real price of gasoline in the United 

States increased more than two fold after having risen only modestly in the preceding 15 

years. Not surprisingly, this run-up led to renewed interest in the effects of oil shocks on 

the U.S. aggregate economy. Hamilton’s (1983) seminal paper documented the negative 

effects of oil shocks on the aggregate economy, and numerous papers since that time 

have extended or questioned the strength of these effects.1 Most recently, several authors 

have argued that the effects of oil price shocks on U.S. aggregate activity have declined 

since the mid 1980s (e.g. Herrera and Pesavento (2009), Blanchard and Galí (2010), 

Blanchard and Riggi (2009), Edelstein and Kilian (2009)). These papers have variously 

attributed the decline to improved monetary policy, a smaller share of oil in production, 

or more flexible labor markets. Empirical work has also shown that a more-muted 

response in the consumption of motor vehicles to energy price shocks has played a large 

role in obtaining these results (Edelstein and Kilian (2009)). 

This paper re-examines the extent to which the impact of oil shocks on the 

aggregate economy—and on the motor vehicle industry in particular—has changed over 

time. We first discuss the array of energy cost measures that authors in the literature 

have used to define oil price shocks, and then we survey the theoretical contributions 

from a number of DSGE macro models that include various roles for oil in the economy. 

Using these models, there are a number of structural parameters that reasonably could 

 

1

 See, for example, Mork (1989), Hooker (1996), Hamilton (1996), Barsky and Kilian (2002), and 

Hamilton (2003). 

2
have changed over time and reduced the potency with which oil price fluctuations 

depress aggregate output. 

However, all of these macro models assume that the price of oil reflects the true 

cost of energy for firms and consumers. While much of the recent empirical work uses 

published measures of oil and/or gasoline prices as an indicator of the strength of the oil 

price shocks, we find that these measures neglect the impact of the shortages that 

occurred in the critical 1973-74 and 1979 oil shock episodes due to price controls. 

Using two oil shock measures that include the effects of both price and non-price 

rationing, we re-examine the evidence from vector autoregressions that oil disturbances 

have had less impact on the real economy in the past twenty years than in the preceding 

decades. The results show that the responses of motor vehicle consumption and 

aggregate output to shortage adjusted oil price shocks appear just as great during the past 

two and a half decades as they were in the 1970s and early 1980s. On the other hand, 

even the new measures imply that the impact on nominal variables has become 

noticeably muted. 

Why has there been so little change over time in the response of motor vehicle 

consumption to oil price changes? We find that, despite the many innovations in the way 

the U.S. economy produces and uses motor vehicles that have occurred over the past 40 

years, the primary channels through which oil prices directly affect motor vehicles have 

not changed much over time. Namely, we present evidence that the recent increases in 

gasoline prices have caused just as much anxiety in consumers now as was observed 30 

years ago, and the shifts in demand across vehicle size classes have also been as equally 

3
disruptive to motor vehicle capacity utilization since 2000 as they were in the 1970s and 

early 1980s. 

The paper proceeds as follows. Section II reviews the data available on various 

measures of oil prices and discusses how modern DSGE models accommodate the role of 

oil in the economy. It also presents evidence that the presence of energy price controls 

and gasoline shortages in the 1970s may cause problems in empirical work because 

published prices in that era do not reflect the true cost of energy. Using measures that 

include the cost of shortages, we find no evidence of weaker effects of oil shocks on the 

real economy. Because we find that the motor vehicle industry plays a central role in the 

propagation of the oil shocks, the remainder of the paper studies this industry in detail. 

Section III examines the role of the motor vehicle industry in the overall economy. 

Section IV discusses how gas prices affect vehicle demand and Section V shows the ways 

in which these shocks affect production. Section VI concludes. 

I. Oil shocks and the U.S. economy 

We begin by reviewing the behavior of several key measures of oil prices over the 

past few decades. After describing how macro DSGE models have been used to 

understand the role of energy costs in the economy, we present evidence that price 

controls may have led to a wedge between the published price of oil and the true cost of 

oil during the large oil price shocks in the 1970s. Using vector autoregressions that are 

similar to those estimated by Blanchard and Galí (2010) and Edelstein and Kilian (2009), 

we then show how mismeasurement of the true cost of oil in the 1970s may have caused 

the appearance of structural instability in the impulse response functions of real output to 

4
oil price shocks. Using cost measures that account for shortages, we find that the impulse 

response functions have not changed much over time. 

A. Overview of oil prices 

 Figure 1 displays three oil price measures: the producer price index for crude

petroleum (PPI-oil), the refiner acquisition cost of imported oil (RAQ), and the consumer 

price index for gasoline (CPI-gas). Hamilton (2003, 2009b) typically uses the PPI-oil 

measure and Mork (1989) and Barsky and Kilian (2002) use versions of the RAQ 

measure.2

 Unfortunately, the RAQ measure starts only in 1974.3 We include the CPIgas measure because several authors have shown that gasoline is a large share of U.S. 

petroleum consumption, and gasoline prices are also the most relevant energy price 

measure for the automobile sector.4 

Oil and gas prices—displayed in log current dollars in the upper panel of Figure 1 

(thick solid line) and in log real index points in the lower panel—have risen notably at 

several points in history. Four episodes stand out in particular: First, the real price of 

gasoline rose 27 percent between October 1973 and May 1974, the result of an even 

larger rise in the price of crude oil after the Yom Kippur War. After falling back a bit 

over the next four years, the price of crude oil began to rise again at the end of 1978. By 

the spring of 1980, the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war led to losses in crude oil 

 

2

 Blanchard and Galí (2008) use the price of West Texas intermediate oil, available from FRED. This 

series shares the same problems with the PPI measure that we will discuss below. 

3

 Barksy and Kilian (2002) extend it back to 1971, but we are worried about this extension, for 

reasons given below. 

4

 Also, Kilian (2009) highlights the importance of studying gas prices separately from crude oil prices. 

5
production that pushed up the price of imported oil 71 percent and the price of gasoline 

46 percent. Between 1982 and 1985, the nominal price of gasoline grew only modestly 

until Saudi Arabia abandoned production quotas and the price of crude oil plunged. 

Real gasoline prices continued to trend lower after 1985, and, by the end of the

1990s, real gasoline prices had receded to record low levels. This pattern changed 

abruptly at the beginning of 1999, when OPEC member countries phased in several cuts 

to production quotas. The real price of gasoline surged 43 percent by the summer of 

2001 before the weakening world economy put downward pressure on crude oil prices. 

The relief was short lived, however. Gas prices began to rise again in early 2002, when 

political turmoil in Venezuela shut down much of the country’s crude oil production; real 

crude prices climbed 588 percent and gasoline prices climbed 127 percent by summer 

2008, and then collapsed when the financial crisis spread from the housing sector to the 

rest of the economy and interrupted aggregate demand. 

B. Oil shocks in macro DSGE models 

Economists take a keen interest in oil prices because these episodes of steep 

increases in prices were often followed by recessions. The literature has introduced into 

macro models four principle channels through which oil or energy shocks can lead to 

recessions: (i) Energy serves as an important input to production; (ii) energy is an 

important consumption good; (iii) changes in energy prices lead to costly shifts in 

demand across sectors; and (iv) the policy response to oil price shocks includes monetary 

tightening, a move that depresses output. Often layered on top of these channels are 

forces that multiply and propagate the effects of oil price shocks on aggregate output, 

such as real wage rigidities (e.g. Bruno and Sachs (1982), Blanchard and Galí (2010), 

6
Blanchard and Riggi (2009)), imperfect competition (Rotemberg and Woodford (1996)), 

variable utilization rates (Finn (2000)), vintage capital effects (Atkeson and Kehoe 

(1999), Wei (2009)), and multiplier effects created by externalities across firms (AguiarConraria and Wen (2007)). We will briefly discuss each of these channels and point out 

which parameters in these DSGE models are suspected to have changed over time. 

Energy as an input to production 

Berndt and Wood (1975), Bruno and Sachs (1982), and Pindyck and Rotemberg 

(1983) were among the first to study energy price shocks in a framework that 

accommodated energy as an input to production. The strength of this channel is limited, 

however, by the small share of energy in total production costs, even in the 1970s. Finn 

(1991, 2000) modifies the standard model to reflect the notion that the energy 

requirements of installed capital are often fixed, and thus energy must be used in fixed 

proportions to capital utilization. This feature makes output more sensitive to increases 

in energy prices. 

In many of the models mentioned above, a decrease in the amount of oil required 

to produce a unit of output would reduce the effect of oil shocks on the aggregate 

economy. This result suggests that increases over time in the fuel efficiency of many 

types of production technology may have weakened the relationship between of oil price 

and real output. In addition, structural parameters not directly related to the use of energy 

can also affect the transmission of energy price shocks in DSGE models. For example, 

Blanchard and Galí (2010) show that a decline in the rigidity of wages in these types of 

models reduces the effects of oil price shocks on output. 

7
Energy as consumption good 

In addition to the consequences of reduced output in general equilibrium, 

increases in oil prices also have direct effects on demand. First, oil shocks can lead to 

declines in demand for goods for which consumption is complementary with purchases of 

oil. Hamilton (1988) and Wei (2009) use models of demand for motor vehicles to show 

this effect. Second, oil shocks introduce uncertainty into the outlook for future energy 

prices, and increases in uncertainty can dampen demand for goods if purchases are costly 

to reverse (Bernanke (1983)). Third, for energy consuming capital goods, increases in 

the price of energy change the desired characteristics of the capital in use. Because the 

energy efficiency of the existing stock of consumer durables available in the short run is 

largely fixed, demand for new goods can shift between products in an exaggerated 

fashion and reflects the widening differential in the relative cost of ownership between 

different types of goods. For motor vehicles, smaller and more fuel-efficient models 

naturally become more desirable. 

In these types of models, one parameter that has likely changed over time is the 

energy efficiency of consumer durable goods, including motor vehicles and other 

appliances. When energy efficiency rises or the share of these types of goods in total 

consumption falls, then we would expect the impact of oil shocks on output to diminish 

over time. 

Sectoral shifts and costly factor mobility 

8
Several papers have investigated sectoral shifts as a way in which oil price shocks 

affect the aggregate output. Davis (1987) and Hamilton (1988) both suggest that oil price 

shocks have a bigger effect on output if the shocks induce sectoral shifts and factor 

adjustment is costly. Bresnahan and Ramey (1993) argue that oil shocks can lead to 

disruptive sectoral shifts even within narrowly defined industries. They present empirical 

evidence that shifts in demand between size classes of automobiles disrupted output in 

the U.S. automobile industry during the 1970s. 

In the context of the multi-sector models, it is not clear that the structure of the 

economy has changed in a way that would weaken the transmission of oil price shocks 

through the sectoral shifts channel. We find evidence in the motor vehicle industry that 

this channel remains quite potent. 

Monetary Policy Reaction Functions 

 Bernanke, Gertler and Watson (1997) argue that the endogenous response of 

monetary policy to an increase in oil prices is an important part of the outsized declines 

observed in output, a result they showed by using a structural vector autoregression and 

counterfactual experiments with different monetary policy rules.5

 Using a calibrated 

DGE model, Leduc and Sill (2004) found that 40 percent of the decline in output that 

follows a positive shock to oil prices reflects the systematic component of monetary 

policy. 

 

5

 Hamilton and Herrera (2004) questioned details of their specification. Bernanke, Gertler and 

Watson (2004) responded and re-estimating their model in a way that attempts to deal with this critique and 

find results only slightly less strong than in their original paper. 

9
 To look for changes in policy parameters over time and assess whether these 

changes may have reduced the impact of oil shocks on output, a number of papers have 

either simulated monetary DGE models or estimated monetary structural vector auto 

regressions. Herrera and Pesavento (2009), Blanchard and Galí (2010), and Blanchard 

and Riggi (2009) all find evidence that oil price shocks have had less impact in recent 

decades, in part, because of the changes in monetary policy. 

 To summarize, the theoretical literature has suggested a variety of ways in which 

oil shocks affect the economy. Some of these effects should be expected to be weaker 

now, while other effects can easily be as strong. 

C. The importance of non-price rationing in the 1970s 

In the models described above, it is assumed that the price of oil reflects the true 

acquisition cost of energy for firms and households. While the literature on the effects of 

oil shocks has debated the merits of various measures of oil prices and whether the 

effects are nonlinear,6

 much of it has missed a potentially important change in the degree 

to which oil prices reflect oil disruptions. In particular, other than Mork (1989), 

macroeconomists have not paid much attention to the embargoes, price controls, and 

shortages that marked the oil price disturbances in the 1970s. Helbling and Turley (1975) 

document that price controls were first imposed on the U.S. domestic oil industry in 

August 1971 as part of the general imposition of price controls. The controls on other 

sectors of the economy were phased out, but the controls were made more stringent on 

the domestic oil industry in response to the OPEC embargo of October 1973. These 

 

6

 For example, see the debate between Kilian and Vigfusson (2009) and Hamilton (2009b). 

10
complex controls, which imposed a price ceiling on “old” oil that was lower than the one 

imposed on “new” oil, led to significant disruptions in the production of domestic oil and 

held the average domestic price of crude oil below the world price. Most of the effects of 

these controls were felt in the markets for gasoline and diesel fuel. According to some 

estimates, 20 percent of the gasoline stations ran out of gas during the height of the crisis 

(Frum (2000)). 

Pisarski and de Terra (1975) detail the policy responses to the embargo in various 

European countries. While most European countries did not impose the types of price 

controls imposed in the United States, they responded with other sorts of controls, such as 

bans on Sunday driving (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland) and limits on gas 

purchases (Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland). Almost all countries 

imposed lower speed limits. 

Multiple oil and gas price controls also helped produce shortages after the Iranian 

Revolution of 1979. In April 1979, President Carter announced gradual decontrol of oil 

prices, but proposed a windfall profits tax. In January 1981, President Reagan signed an 

order leading to the complete deregulation of oil and gas prices. 

To quantify the additional cost imposed on consumers by non-price rationing in 

the 1970s, Frech and Lee (1987) use data on urban and rural traffic patterns in California 

and estimates of the price elasticity of demand for gasoline from Lee (1980). They 

estimate that the time cost of the queues added between 13 to 84 percent to the price of a 

gallon of gasoline between December 1973 and March 1974; the additional time cost 

implicitly paid by consumers between May 1979 and July 1979 varied from 6 to 33 

percent. Thus, the price index for gasoline shown in Figure 1 potentially understates the 

11
true cost of gasoline quite severely in periods affected by the two oils shocks of the 

1970s. 

The producer price index for crude petroleum suffers from the same problem 

because of the price controls on domestic crude oil. The refiners’ acquisition cost of 

imported oil used by Barsky and Kilian (2002) comes closer to measuring the world price 

of oil. However, this measure still does not capture all of the additional costs imposed on 

the U.S. economy by distortions caused by price controls and the entitlement system. 

The reason is that price controls cause inefficiencies and deadweight loss that are larger 

than the gap between actual prices and market clearing prices.7

In order to capture the true cost of gasoline during these episodes, we propose two 

new variables: The first variable augments published gas prices with estimates of the 

additional time cost during the periods of gasoline lines. In particular, we use the average 

of the rural and urban estimates from Table 1 in Frech and Lee (1987), which compares 

the time costs per gallon to the published price per gallon of gasoline for the months of 

December 1973 through March 1974 and May 1979 through July 1979. All told, 

rationing is estimated to have added between 8 percent (in July 1979) to 67 percent (in 

March 1974) to the shadow price of a gallon of gasoline.8

 Using these estimates, we 

 

7

 For example, Frech and Lee describe inefficiencies in the allocation of gasoline across urban and 

rural markets. Similarly, Davis and Killian (2009) show that the total inefficiency costs of price controls on 

residential natural gas in the U.S. was three times larger than was the estimate of the simple deadweight 

loss. 

8

 Frech and Lee’s estimates are based on data from only California, so the question arises as to how 

California’s shortages compared to the rest of the nation. According to the Feb. 8, 1974 Wall Street 

Journal, there was no rationing in “New England north of Boston, much of the Midwest, Denver, Nevada, 

and Southern California. In Northern California, the word was okay on weekdays and in daylight, but 

12
construct a shortage adjusted index for the real price of gasoline, which is shown as the 

dashed line in figure 2. 

Because the rationing-by-queue cost estimates likely capture the effect of 

shortages imperfectly, we also consider a second measure—the special question posed by 

Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan in the Survey of Consumer Attitudes. 

Respondents to the monthly survey are asked several questions related to car buying 

conditions. The survey tracks the portion of respondents who cite the price of gasoline or 

possible fuel shortages as a reason that car buying conditions are poor.9

 This measure is 

shown in Figure 3. The portion of consumers that expressed anxiety over fuel prices 

ramped up sharply at the time of the oil price shocks in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

Although the rise in real gas prices was much greater in the 2000s than in the 1970s and 

early 1980s, the consumer sentiment variable hit similar peaks in both periods. A 

CNN/Opinion Research Poll conducted in June 2008 found that consumers were more 

concerned about long gas lines than about high prices (CNNMoney.com, June 10, 2008). 

This may explain why the run-up in gas prices in the 2000s, though bigger than the runups in earlier episodes, did not cause a larger effect on consumer sentiment. 

 

otherwise watch out. There were long lines in Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia area...and in New 

York and New Jersey, where things have been tough for quite a while now.” 

9

 Other reasons consumers can give for this being a bad time for buying a car are: (1) prices of cars 

are too high; (2) interest rates are too high; (3) can’t afford to buy; (4) uncertain future; and (5) poor 

selection or quality of cars. 

13
D. The responses of output, consumption, and prices to oil price shocks 

Using the published measures of energy prices and the two variables that account 

for non-price rationing in the 1970s, we now revisit the evidence used to suggest that 

aggregate activity has been responding less to energy price shocks in recent years than it 

used to in the past. The energy price measures we consider are the following: (1) The 

consumer price index for gasoline; (2) Hamilton’s (2003,2009b) “net oil price 

increases”10; (3) the CPI index for gasoline that has been augmented with the time cost of 

rationing-by-queue; and (4) the measure of consumer attitudes toward gasoline prices and 

fuel shortages. Our strategy is as follows: First we show that the impulse response 

functions from vector autoregressions estimated by Blanchard and Galí (2010) and 

Edelstein and Kilian (2009) do not change much if published gasoline prices are used in 

place of the authors’ original oil price measures. Second, we show that the impulse 

response functions based on gasoline price measures that account for the effects of 

shortages present a different story. 

We begin by estimating a vector autoregression (VAR) that is similar to the one 

used by Blanchard and Galí (2010). The VAR system we estimate is given in 

equation (1). 

(1) t −1 += UYLAY tt ( )

In the VAR estimated by Blanchard and Galí with quarterly data, includes the nominal 

price of oil, the CPI, the GDP deflator, nominal nonfarm compensation, real GDP and 

Yt

 

10 The Hamilton measure is defined as the log change in the price index for gasoline relative to its 

previous three-year high if it is positive, or zero if it is negative 

14
nonfarm business hours. In other specifications, they also included the federal funds rate. 

In our version of their analysis, is built from monthly observations of the following 

variables (in order): (i) A selected version of one of the oil shock variables, (ii) the 

consumer price index (CPI), (iii) nominal wages of private production workers, (iv) 

industrial production, (v) civilian hours, and (vi) the federal funds rate. A(L) is a matrix 

of polynomials in the lag operator L. U is a vector of disturbances. All variables except 

the sentiment measure and the federal funds rate are in logs. The shock to oil prices is 

identified using a standard Cholesky decomposition. We include a linear time trend and 

six lags of the variables. The data are monthly and span 1967:1 to 2009:12. 

Yt

Blanchard and Galí (2010) compare samples that are split between 1983 and 

1984, which is the typical split for studies of the Great Moderation. Edelstein and Kilian 

(2009) study samples split between 1987 and 1988. We choose a split between 1985 and 

1986, as this date is between the dates used by these authors, and it also coincides with 

the rather dramatic change in the nature of the oil market that occurred in 1986. 

We summarize the results in table 1. As an alternative to showing dozens of 

impulse response functions from various permutations of oil price measures and 

estimation periods, table 1 shows the peak response of key macro variables to a shock in 

each oil price indicator in each period. 

The oil measure used for each impulse is shown in the first line of each panel in 

the table. The shock has been normalized so that the size of the increase at its peak is 

equal to one in both periods. It is important to note, however, that the standard deviations 

of the (non-normalized) shocks to nominal gas prices and to Hamilton’s net price gain 

measure are more than twice as high in the second period as in the first period. In 

15
contrast, the standard deviation of the shocks to the shortage-adjusted gas price is roughly 

constant across the periods, whereas the standard deviation of the shocks to the measure 

of consumer sentiment toward gasoline is about 50 percent higher in the second period.

The key comparison in Table 1 is the ratio in the last column. For a given shock 

in the gas cost variable, it shows the ratio of the peak response of the other variables in 

the second period to the peak response in the first period. The results for both the 

standard nominal gas price measure and Hamilton’s nonlinear measure show that the 

responses of both industrial production and hours are less than half as large in the second 

period as in the first period. The response of inflation appears to have declined by an 

even larger proportion than did the real variables. In contrast, when either the real index 

of gas prices adjusted for the cost of shortages or the measure of consumer sentiment 

about gas prices/shortages are used as the oil price indicator, the peak response of 

industrial production becomes greater in the second period than in the first period. For 

hours, the response remains slightly less in the second period than in the first period if we 

use as the oil price indicator the shortage adjusted gas price index, but it becomes greater 

if we use the measure of consumer sentiment.11 However, the response of inflation is 

still lower in the second period than in the first period even if the shortage adjusted gas 

price index or the gasoline sentiment measure is used as the oil price indicator.12 

 

11 We do not show the response of nominal wages and the funds rate because their responses are not 

significantly different from zero and the dynamic patterns swing from positive to negative in some cases. 

12 The results are similar if we substitute the chained price deflator for personal consumption 

expenditures for the consumer price index. 

16
To examine more formally the relationship between consumer sentiment toward 

gasoline and the various gasoline price measures, we estimate a number of bivariate 

vector auto regressions and compare the relationship in the early and late periods. We 

find that shocks to the published CPI for gasoline appear to have an effect on sentiment in 

the early period that is about twice as large as the effect in the late period. In contrast, 

shocks to the shortage adjusted gasoline price index have about the same peak effect on 

sentiment in each period. This evidence suggests that the presence of shortages in the 

early period is the key difference between shocks to gasoline sentiment and shocks to the 

published CPI for gasoline. 

Edelstein and Kilian (2009) find that much of the decline in aggregate activity (or 

aggregate consumption, more specifically) that follows a jump in oil prices comes 

through demand for motor vehicles. They also show that this channel has weakened over 

time, thereby reducing the effect of oil shocks on aggregate activity. Because this result 

is even more likely to have been affected by presence of market distortions in the 1970s, 

we also re-estimate a VAR similar to the Edelstein and Kilian (2009) model, using our 

shortage adjusted measures for the true cost of gasoline. 

We estimate a trivariate VAR, in which is defined by (i) one of the oil cost 

indicators, (ii) the log of real total consumption excluding motor vehicles, and (iii) the log 

of real consumption of motor vehicles. In the first set of results, we use as an energy 

price indicator the Edelstein and Kilian (2009) measure of the purchasing power lost to 

increases in oil prices: This measure scales the changes in real energy prices by the share 

Yt

17
of energy in consumption expenditures.13 In the second set of results, we use as an oil 

cost indicator the consumer sentiment toward gasoline. In each set of results we estimate 

the VAR in two sample periods: 1967:1 – 1985:12 and 1986:1 – 2009:12. We normalize 

each shock so that the peak responses of the shock variable are equal to one in each 

sample period. 

Figure 4 shows the estimates, with filled dots indicating when the estimated 

response is more than two standard deviations from zero and open circles indicating 

when the response is more than one but less than two standard deviations from zero. The 

panels to the left show responses that use the Edelstein and Kilian purchasing power 

series as an oil cost indicator, and the responses to the shocks are largely consistent with 

those originally reported by Edelstein and Kilian. Specifically, the response of total 

consumption falls less sharply in the second sample period than in the first sample period, 

though the responses are not statistically significant in either period. To the degree that 

the response has changed, the bottom panel shows that most of the change comes from 

the consumption of motor vehicles: The response in the consumption of motor vehicles is 

much less in the second period (the dashed line) than the first period (the solid line). 

The column to the right in figure 4 shows the impulse responses obtained when 

the consumer sentiment toward gasoline serves as the oil cost indicator. Several 

comparisons here stand out. First, the responses of consumption to these shocks have 

not diminished between the early and late periods; this holds true for the consumption of 

 

13 We also considered a measure that scaled prices by the average fuel efficiency of the motor vehicle 

stock and the miles driven by households. The results were similar to those using the Edelstein and Kilian 

measure. 

18
motor vehicles and the consumption of all other goods and services. Moreover, the 

responses in the second period appear to be more persistent than those in the first period. 

Second, the responses based on these shocks are statistically significant, an indication 

that real activity is more closely related to consumer perceptions of the price of gasoline 

and its availability than it is to published fuel prices. And third, the decline in 

consumption of motor vehicles after a gasoline price sentiment shock is many times 

larger than the response of consumption excluding motor vehicles.14 

For comparison, we also estimated the impulse response based on other measures 

of energy prices. Using the Hamilton measure of net oil price increases, the responses 

show a significant muting between the early and the late samples. If we use the shortage 

adjusted measure of gasoline prices, we find results qualitatively similar to those obtained 

using consumer sentiment toward gasoline as the oil cost indicator. The responses to oil 

shocks are only slightly smaller in the second period than in the first periods; the peak 

impact on total consumption is 0.9 in the second period relative to the first, and on motor 

vehicle consumption is 0.8. 

To summarize, when oil price shocks are measured as the shocks to either the 

published price index for gasoline, the Hamilton net increase in oil prices, or the 

Edelstein and Kilian purchasing power measure, we confirm the results from the 

literature that oil shocks have much less of an impact on the economy after 1985 than 

they did up until 1985. In contrast, when we measure oil shocks as either the shocks to 

 

14 The relative magnitudes of the estimated responses imply that about 30 percent of the decline in 

total consumption that occurs 15 months after a gasoline price shock comes from the decline in motor 

vehicle consumption. 

19
the price of gasoline adjusted for the cost of shortages or as the shocks to consumer 

sentiment toward gasoline, we find that the impact of these shocks on real activity has 

either diminished only slightly or has become larger in the later period. Lastly, all 

measures of energy price shocks produce results that suggest the motor vehicle industry 

is a key part of the transmission mechanism between oil shocks and real activity. Thus, 

the remainder of the paper presents evidence that, although the motor vehicle industry has 

changed in many ways over the past 40 years, this sector continues to act as an important 

propagation mechanism between oil price shocks and real activity. 

II. The contribution of the motor vehicle sector to the U.S. Economy 

The contraction in the size of the Detroit three automakers in recent decades often 

leaves the impression that the contribution of the auto industry to the U.S. economy has 

declined significantly. In this section we present some measures of the contribution of 

the entire domestic motor vehicle industry (the portion operated by the Detroit firms as 

well as the portion operated by other firms) to the U.S. economy and to the business 

cycle. 

Figure 5 shows two measures of the contribution of motor vehicle output to U.S. 

GDP: Panel A shows the quarterly values of a statistic commonly referred to as “gross 

motor vehicle output,” and panel B shows annual estimates of the domestic value added 

of motor vehicle and parts manufacturing, a narrower view of the industry’s contribution 

to GDP.15 The lower line in each of these graphs displays each measure of output as a 

 

15 “Gross motor vehicle output” in the NIPAs is the retail value of motor vehicles sold to final 

consumers (households, businesses, and governments) and the wholesale value of vehicles invested in 

20
share of total GDP, and the upper lines plot these measures as a share of either goods 

GDP (for gross motor vehicle output) or total value added from goods manufacturing (for 

motor vehicle and parts manufacturing value added). Shares are calculated from nominal 

expenditures data reported in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The 

dashed lines in the figure represent the 95 percent confidence interval for the sample 

mean of each line in two sample periods: 1967 to 1985, and 1986 to 2007 (before the 

financial crisis had affected vehicle sales). 

Two features of the graphs in figure 5 are worth noting: First, motor vehicle 

output drops abruptly in recessions, and many of these recessions followed large 

increases in gasoline prices. As shown in table 2, the motor vehicle sector alone accounts 

for between 14 and 22 percent of the variance of the quarterly changes in real GDP, 

depending on the time period. Even after the great moderation, these figures continue to 

exceed the moderate size of the motor vehicle sector. 

The second feature of the graph that is worth noting is that the size of the motor 

vehicle industry as a share of the U.S. economy does not show a downward trend that is 

as striking as one might expect. As a share of total GDP (the top line in Panel A), motor 

vehicles represented about 4 percent of the U.S. economy between 1967 and 1985, and 

that figure declined to 31⁄2 percent between 1986 and 2007. As a share of the goods 

producing sectors of the U.S. economy, however, motor vehicle output actually increased 

 

inventories. This series is adjusted for net exports of motor vehicles and has the advantage of capturing all 

of the value added from the production process as well as from the distribution of motor vehicles to final 

demand, including the wholesale and retail margins. This measure is not the same as “gross output of motor 

vehicles and parts” in the U.S. industry accounts, which is the sum of all sales and receipts in the industry, 

including sales of intermediate inputs to firms in other (or in the same) industries. 

21
between the two periods, from about 101⁄2 percent in the early sample, to about 

111⁄2 percent in the more recent sample. Manufacturing value added gives a similar 

picture: Motor vehicle and parts manufacturers accounted for 5.7 percent of U.S. 

manufacturing value added in the 1970s and early 1980s, and this share slipped to 

5.2 percent in the more recent period. However, as shown by the dashed lines, the 

decline between the two periods is not very pronounced relative to its high volatility.16

All told, the motor vehicle sector has been a modest but relatively stable share of 

the goods producing sector over the past 40 years, and the declines that have occurred in 

its contribution to total GDP mostly reflect an increase in the size of the services sector. 

Most importantly, the auto industry continues to induce swings in aggregate activity that 

far exceed its modest size. 

III. Oil shocks and the demand for motor vehicles 

We now describe theories of how gasoline prices affect vehicle demand and then 

present evidence in some detailed auto industry data that consumers adjust their vehicle 

buying patterns in response to changes in gasoline prices. In addition, we show that this 

behavior has not changed much over the past 40 years. 

A rather large literature has developed—much of it in the late 1970s—to analyze 

how households respond to changes in gasoline prices by making adjustments to their 

 

16 One additional measure of motor vehicle output that we examined (but do not report) is motor 

vehicle and parts output. This wider view of the industry is intended to help control for the value of 

imported intermediate inputs to motor vehicle production that have risen over time. (See Kurz, and 

Lengermann (2008), and Klier and Rubenstein (2009).) Using this adjusted measure, motor vehicle output 

was 121⁄2 percent of goods GDP in both the early and late periods, and it declined from 43⁄4 percent of total 

GDP in the early period, to 33⁄4 percent in the later period. 

22
vehicle stock and to their driving behavior (e.g. Dahl (1979)).17 More recently, Wei 

(2009) casts the vehicle purchasing decision in a general equilibrium framework, in 

which households invest in transportation capital with a particular level of fuel efficiency 

and then combine it with gasoline to produce the good that ultimately enters their utility 

functions—personal vehicle travel. Because consumers are forward looking, changes in 

gasoline prices lead to dynamic effects on the vehicle stock and average fuel efficiency. 

Following a gasoline price shock, households respond in the short run mostly by 

reducing travel, though estimates from the literature suggest the response in the short run 

is quite low (e.g. Hughes, Knittel and Sperling (2006)). Over long horizons, households 

adjust their vehicle technology and reduce further their consumption of gasoline. Using 

her DSGE model calibrated to US fuel and vehicle consumption data, Wei (2009) finds 

that vehicle purchases and total miles traveled decline after a permanent shock to 

gasoline prices, though the equilibrium fuel efficiency of new vehicles increases. 

These theories suggest that permanent increases in gasoline prices lead 

households to reduce vehicle travel in the short run and then to replace their vehicle stock 

in the long run. In the very-long run, gasoline prices can also impact where households 

choose to live and work. 

To see the effects of these decisions on vehicle travel over the past 40 years, 

figure 6 plots total vehicle miles traveled per household in the United States between 

1970 and 2009. Two features in the figure are noteworthy: First, households nowadays 

consume a significantly larger amount of travel than they did in the early 1970s: The 

 

17 The CBO study from January 2008, “Effect of Gasoline Prices on Driving Behavior and Vehicle 

Markets,” surveys much of the literature from the 1970s. 

23
average household drove approximately 1,500 miles per month in 1970, and that figure 

has increased 50 percent, to almost 2,200 miles per month in the period 2000-2007. 

Second, households do cut back on travel when gasoline prices increase, though part of 

the decline in travel likely also reflects the deterioration in the broader economy that also 

occurs at these times. 

While households now drive more each month than they did in the early 1970s, 

they do so in vehicles that are, on average, more fuel efficient. Figure 7 shows data from 

the U.S. Department of Transportation on the average fuel efficiency of the registered 

stocks of cars and light trucks (which include SUVs and vans). As seen in the plot, the 

average fuel economy for each type of vehicle has increased over the sample, though 

much of the gains occurred in the 1980s, after the United States introduced Corporate 

Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that were met by reducing the average weight 

of cars and introducing some technological improvements to engine design. 

One feature of figure 7 that receives lots of attention is the marked slowdown (or 

near halt) in the rate of improvement for average fuel economy that occurred in the 

1990s. This was an era of relatively cheap gasoline, and, likely as a result, demand 

shifted away from cars and toward larger sports utility vehicles.18 Studies that more 

carefully take into account vehicle size and engine horsepower, such as Knittel (2009), 

conclude that the technological frontier of fuel-economy/vehicle-weight/engine-power 

possibilities continued to expand over this period, but these improvements are obscured 

in aggregate data by the shift in sales across vehicle size classes. 

 

18 The average fuel efficiency of vehicles flowing into the stock each year (i.e., new sales) actually 

decreased during the 1990s, as the mix in sales shifted toward light trucks. 

24
Shifts in vehicle demand across vehicle size classes often occur when gasoline 

prices move dramatically, a stylized fact that was discussed by Bresnahan and Ramey 

(1993). To see evidence of this, figure 8 shows the domestic market shares of vehicles of 

various sizes.19 The panel to the left shows the key market shares in the 1970s and early 

1980s. The domestic market share for standard-size cars fell noticeably in 1973 and did 

not stabilize until almost two years later.20 When the second oil price shocks hit in 1979, 

this market share fell even further. The market share of small cars moved in the opposite 

direction on both occasions. 

The panel to the right shows market shares of key vehicle segments in the 2000s. 

The patterns in market shares since 2000 have been similar to those observed in the 

earlier episodes of sharp gas prices increases, though the scope of the variety of products 

available has grown considerably since the 1970s. The market share of full size pickups, 

utility vehicles and vans fell more than 15 percentage points between its peak in 2004 and 

early 2009. Small cars and the new cross utility vehicle segment picked up most of this 

market share.21

 

19 This graph focuses on the market for domestically produced goods. An additional effect not shown 

in the graph is the shift to imported cars when oil prices increase; this move occurred in both the in 1980s 

and in the 2000s. The share of imported vehicles rose from about 15 percent in the mid 1970s to about 

25 percent in the first half of the 1980s. The import share then fell back as foreign automakers began to 

establish manufacturing operations in North America, and the import share fell below 10 percent by 1996, 

The market share of imported vehicles turned up again in the late 1990s, and the share moved up from 

17 percent in 2000, to 26 percent in 2009.

20 The domestic market share excludes vehicles imported from outside North America. 

21 A cross-utility vehicle is a utility vehicle that is assembled on a car chassis. They are classified by 

the industry as a light truck. 

25
IV. The response of motor vehicle production 

Shocks that affect motor vehicle sales often lead to changes in the rate of 

production that are quite abrupt, and the high level of volatility in motor vehicle 

production has been studied extensively in the literature on inventories and production 

scheduling. It is well-understood how changes in aggregate vehicle demand can lead to 

reductions in production. In this section, we show how changes in the composition of 

demand, such as those induced by gas price increases, can lead to further declines in 

output. 

We begin by presenting an inventory model in which segment shifts lead to 

capacity mismatches and thereby reduce output. We then study this channel using 

detailed auto industry data by vehicle size class. We find that segment shifts are an 

important channel through which oil shocks affect the U.S. motor vehicle industry and 

that the importance of this channel has not declined much over time. 

A. Segment shifts and the constraints on capacity 

Bresnahan and Ramey (1993) speculated that a shift in demand from one vehicle 

segment to another, with no decline in overall demand, can lead to a decrease in 

production and capacity utilization. They also argued that the variance of days’ supply 

(i.e. the inventory-sales ratio) across segments reflects mismatches between capacity and 

demand for vehicles in some segments. 

In order to formalize this hypothesis, we consider a simple model of a profitmaximizing monopolist that sells cars to two segments of demand. For each segment i, 

the monopolist chooses the price, Pt, and schedules production using regular time hours, 

RHt, and overtime hours, OHt. These choices determine expected sales, St, and expected 

26
end-of period inventories, It. The firm maximizes the expected present discounted value 

of profits, given as equation (2). 

(2) 0 0 11 2 2

0

[ ] t

tt t t t

t

E β P S P S Cost

∞

=

Π = ∑ + −

 The costs of production and inventory holding are given by equation (3). 

(3) 

12 1 2

2 2

1 11 11 2 21 2 2

1 1 ( )( 2 2

ttt t

tt t

Cost RH RH OH OH

IS I S )

t

t

γ γ γω γω

αφ α φ − −

=⋅ +⋅ +⋅⋅ +⋅⋅

+ −+ −

Inventory stocks evolve according to equation (4), 

(4) itit −1 it −++= itit iSOHRHII = 1, ,2

and the use of regular time hours is limited by the capacity constraints in equation (5). 

(5) iKRH =≤ 2,1, it

The parameters of the model satisfy the following restrictions: 0 < β < 1; γ > 0; ω > 1; αi, 

φi > 0; K > 0. 

Relative to the familiar linear-quadratic production smoothing model, the 

inventory holding costs in equation (3) are the same, but the marginal costs of production 

are somewhat more complicated: Marginal costs in this model are flat when the 

monopolist uses regular time hours but rise when the firm must increase its workweek of 

capital and use overtime hours or a second shift. This assumption induces a key 

asymmetry in marginal costs. 

Finally, the sales processes for segments 1 and 2 are described by equations (6) 

and (7). 

(6) 1 1

seg agg

t A Bt t t S Pu =− + + θ θ u

(7) 2 2

seg agg

t A Bt t t S Pu =− − + θ θ u

27
There are two types of demand shifts in these sales equations: The first, seg

t u , is a variable 

that shifts demand away from one segment and toward the other, while the second, , 

is a variable that shifts the demand curves for all types of vehicles in the same direction. 

We assume that each of these shift variables follows an AR(1) process as shown in 

equations (8) and (9). 

agg

t u

(8) 1

seg seg

t t u u ρ t ε =⋅ + −

(9) agg agg

t t u u =⋅ + ρ ηt

The autocorrelation parameter ρ lies between 0 and 1, and the shocks ε and η are white 

noise. 

 An increase in gasoline prices affects vehicle sales through both and agg

t u segt u . 

To study the effects of the second type of shock—the shift in sales between segments—

we simulate the model and evaluate the optimal paths of key choice variables. To 

calibrate the simulation, β and φi are set to match the averages observed in the data for 

interest rates and days’ supply for light vehicles. We choose values for K, θA, θB, and γ to 

generate a price elasticity of demand of -1.5 at the steady-state level of output, a figure 

that is in the range of empirical estimates for total vehicle demand. Finally, we set α

B

 

22

i

and ω so that the premium on overtime hours or second shift hours is ten percent. The 23

22 Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) find much higher elasticities (in absolute value) for particular 

models. 

23 The statutory overtime premium is 50 percent, whereas shift premia are typically 5 to 10 percent. 

Trejo (1991) has found that the implicit overtime premium is substantially lower than 50 percent. Thus, 

our assumption of a 10 percent premium is within the relevant range. 

28
simulation considers shocks that shift the intercept of the demand curve by 10 percent, 

with ρ equal to 0.75. 24

Because plants face the same cost function in each segment, the effects of an 

aggregate shock on inventories and production are the same in each segment. And, 

because the inventory-sales ratios change by equal amounts in each segment, the crosssection variance of the days’ supply remains zero. This is not the case for shocks that 

shift demand between segments, a scenario that is shown in figure 9. If demand for 

segment 1 cars shifts up and demand for segment 2 cars shifts down by an equal amount, 

total production falls because the rise in output in segment 1 does not fully offset the fall 

in output in segment 2. The asymmetric response of production reflects the increase in 

marginal costs that occurs at the capacity constraint. Mirroring this pattern, the price of 

vehicles in segment 1 rises by an amount that is different from the decline in the price of 

vehicles in segment 2. All told, segment shifts reduce total production, sales, and 

capacity utilization, and they drive up the variance of days’ supply across vehicle 

segments. 

Some of these results depend critically on the increase in marginal cost that 

occurs when production exceeds the level of capacity.25 If costs were instead quadratic, 

as is assumed in the standard production smoothing model, then marginal costs would be 

linear, capacity utilization would have no effect on production costs, and segment shifts 

 

24 The values of the parameters are as follows: β = 0.997, φi = 2.5 for i = 1, 2, K= 40, θA = 100, θB = 1, 

γ = 19.85, αi = 0.1, and ω = 1.1. 

25 Several authors in the capacity utilization literature define full capacity as the point beyond which 

marginal production costs begin to rise too rapidly. See Klein (1960) and Corrado and Mattey (1996). 

29
would not reduce total production.26 The variance of days’ supply would still increase in 

the case of quadratic costs, but the asymmetric response of production to positive and 

negative demand shocks requires the marginal cost function to exhibit some curvature. 

B. Evidence of capacity constraints and segment shifts in the auto industry 

To see the effects of segment shifts in the detailed auto industry data, figure 10 

plots day’s supply for vehicles in selected size classes in the early and late periods. In the 

earlier period, days’ supply of standard cars grew to uncomfortably high levels at the 

time of both oil shocks, and days’ supply for small cars moved down. Similarly, in the 

later period, days’ supply for full size trucks, vans and utilities climbed to critically high 

levels between 2000 and 2008, while days’ supply for small cars and cross utility 

vehicles moved down between 1998 and 2000 before edging back up in 2002. As the 

shift in demand between segments accelerated again at the end of 2004, days’ supply for 

small vehicles receded, and several of the models in these segments were reported to be 

in short supply.27 The onset of the financial crisis in the second half of 2008 appears to 

have been a common shock that pushed up days’ supply for almost all vehicle segments. 

 

26 See, for example, equation (7) of Ramey and Vine (2006). 

27 The patterns in sales and days’ supply between 2000 and 2009 were influenced by occasional 

inventory clearance events, often targeted toward full size trucks and SUVs. The Detroit manufacturers 

have typically dominated the full size truck market segments and therefore faced significant loss in market 

share as sales of these vehicles sagged over this period. The large dip in days’ supply in late 2001 reflects 

the advent of zero-interest financing, and the plunge in stocks in 2005 coincides with the extension of these 

firms’ employee-discount programs to all customers. 

30
To measure these supply imbalances on a more general scale, we calculate the 

variance of days’ supply across size categories, DS V , that was described earlier. The 

formula is shown in equation (10). 

(10) ( )

11 2

1

; 1, 2,...,11

i

DS t i A

t t A t

i t

I V DS DS i

I =

= −= ∑

i

t I denotes inventories on hand in vehicle segment i at the end of period t, A

t I is the 

aggregate inventory stock, is days’ supply for each segment, i DSt

A DSt denotes aggregate 

days’ supply, and i ranges from 1 to 11, covering five car segments (subcompact, 

compact, intermediate, full-size and luxury) and six truck segments (compact pickups, 

full-size pickups, small vans, large vans, cross utility vehicles, and full-size utility 

vehicles). An increase the variance of days’ supply across segments indicates that the 

imbalance between the composition of capacity and the composition of demand has 

become worse.28 

The variance of days’ supply is plotted in Figure 11 from January 1972 to March 

2009. Large spikes in the variance correspond quite closely with the increases in fuel 

prices discussed earlier. Also, the severity of some of the supply-demand imbalances that 

occurred after 2002 appear even greater than the magnitudes observed in the early 1980s. 

To investigate the empirical relationship between these spikes in the variance of days’ 

supply, the cost of gasoline, and movements in capacity utilization, we estimate a VAR in 

 

28 In the theoretical model presented above, the variance of days’ supply in steady state was zero, 

because the parameters of the cost function were the same for each vehicle segment. In actual industry 

data, vehicle types often show distinct long-run average inventory-sales ratios. This implies that the crosssectional variance can be positive in steady state. 

31
which. includes four variables: (i) consumer sentiment about gasoline prices or 

shortages; (ii) aggregate days-supply for domestic vehicles; (iii) the variance of days 

supply across segments (defined in equation (10)); and (iv) capacity utilization for light 

motor vehicle assembly.

Yt

29 The VAR also includes six lags and a linear time trend. 

Oil shocks in the VAR play two roles: First, oil shocks reduce aggregate demand 

and dampen sales for all types of vehicles. In the production model described earlier, this 

role resembles the aggregate shock that drives up days’ supply for the entire industry and 

reduces capacity utilization for all segments. Second, high gas prices lead to segment 

shifts in demand away from large vehicles and toward small vehicles. This role leads to 

mismatches in capacity and drives up the variance of days’ supply across vehicle 

segments. Our production model also shows how shocks in this role can reduce capacity 

utilization when capacity constraints push up marginal costs for the products in demand. 

 Figure 12 shows the responses of the variables in to a shock to the measure of 

consumer sentiment toward gasoline (meaning a higher percentage of consumers were 

worried about high gas prices), which is ordered first in the VAR. The VAR is estimated 

over the full sample from January 1972 to March 2009. As seen in the figure, both the 

level and variance of days-supply increase after a sentiment shock, indicating that shocks 

to gasoline sentiment affect demand both as an aggregate shock and as segment shifting 

shock. According to the last panel, capacity utilization also falls significantly. 

Yt

 

29 The production theory presented above suggests that one should also include vehicle prices for each 

segment, but unfortunately we lack data on segment specific vehicle prices over much of the necessary 

history. 

32
Has the relationship between these variables changed over time? To answer this 

question, we compare the impulse response functions from VARs estimated separately 

for the 1972—1985 and 1986—2009 periods and plot the results in figure 13. The 

shocks to consumer sentiment toward gasoline have been normalized to reach a peak of 

1.0 in both periods. As seen in the figure, the peak responses of both the level and 

variance of days’ supply are about 30 percent larger in the early period than in the later 

period. The response of capacity utilization, however, is about the same in both periods. 

 Finally, using the VAR estimates and a set of counter-factual experiments, we 

parse the response of capacity utilization to oil shocks into portions that reflect the 

aggregate demand channel and the segment shifts channel. In one experiment, we plot 

the response of utilization to a gasoline sentiment shock after we have shut down the 

segment shifts channel by replacing the estimated coefficients of the days’ supply 

equation in the VAR with zeros. The difference between the baseline response and this 

counter-factual response reveals the contribution of the aggregate demand channel to the 

transmission of gasoline shocks to capacity utilization. In a second experiment, we shut 

down the segment shifts channel by setting the coefficients of the variance of days’ 

supply equation to zero. The third experiment shuts down both channels. 

The panels in figure 14 show the results of the each experiment; the solid lines 

represent the baseline response of capacity utilization to a gasoline sentiment shock, and 

the dashed lines represent one of the counterfactual responses. In the first panel, the 

counterfactual response is only half as large as the baseline response, a comparison that 

suggests the contraction in demand for all vehicles plays an important role in transmitting 

oil shocks to motor vehicle production. The counterfactual response in the second panel 

33
is also only about half as large when the segment shifts channel is shutdown, indicating 

that this channel is also important. The counterfactual response in the third panel remains 

very close to zero, suggesting that omitted channels are not too important. 

The counter-factual exercises indicate that the level and variance of days’ supply 

channels are about equally important in transmitting oil shocks to motor vehicle output. 

These results imply that oil shocks have both aggregate effects and segment shift effects. 

Moreover, the relationship between these variables appears to have been stable over time. 

V. Conclusions 

This paper has studied the impact of oil shocks on the U.S. economy and its motor 

vehicle industry and has examined whether these relationships have changed over time. 

We have found that, once the costs of queuing are added to the prices paid for gasoline 

during the gasoline shortages in the 1970s, real output in the United States has been as 

sensitive to oil price shocks since the mid 1980s as it had been in the 1970s and early 

1980s. The effect on inflation, however, has diminished over time. 

We have also found that the motor vehicle industry plays an important role in 

propagating oil price shocks to the rest of the U.S. economy and that, despite the many 

innovations in the ways motor vehicles are produced and consumed, the primary channels 

through which oil prices directly affect demand for motor vehicles have not weakened 

much over time. Specifically, the abrupt shifts in demand across vehicle size classes that 

stem from oil shocks have been as disruptive to the supply-demand relationship in the 

motor vehicle industry since the mid 1980s as they were in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

Our results may impact the debate over which changes in the U.S. economy have 

led to the decline in GDP volatility since the mid 1980s, or the “Great Moderation.” If 

34
the relationship between oil shocks and real output had, in fact, become weaker since the 

mid 1980s, then this stylized fact could have bolstered arguments that structural change 

had reduced the sensitivity of output to these types of shocks. Our results, to the 

contrary, suggest that this particular relationship has been stable over time. The 

diminished impact of oil shocks on inflation, however, may support the theory that 

monetary policy has played a role in reducing volatility. Finally, our results point to 

another change in government policy that may also have reduced the volatility of output 

since the 1970s: A decline in the propensity to use price controls. 

35
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42

Table 1 

The Peak Effects of Oil Shocks on U.S. Variables 

Estimation period: Jan. 1967 to Dec. 1985 Jan. 1986 to Dec. 2009

Peak effect Month 

of peak Peak effect Month 

of peak

Ratio

(1) (2) (3) (4) (3)/(1)

Nominal gas price 1.000 3 1.000 2 

 Industrial production -0.202 24 -0.091 20 0.45 

 Hours -0.099 26 -0.035 32 0.35 

 CPI 0.184 19 0.051 25 0.28 

Hamilton measure 1.000 1 1.000 1 

 Industrial production -0.005 24 -0.002 11 0.41 

 Hours -0.002 26 -0.001 24 0.39 

 CPI 0.003 13 0.001 2 0.25 

Gas price adjusted for the cost 

of shortages 1.000 1 1.000 2 

 Industrial production -0.072 25 -0.091 20 1.27 

 Hours -0.038 27 -0.035 32 0.92 

 CPI 0.084 20 0.051 2 0.61 

Consumer sentiment about gas 1.000 3 1.000 1 

 Industrial production -0.002 27 -0.003 31 1.67 

 Hours -0.001 27 -0.002 37 1.97 

 CPI 0.002 15 0.001 2 0.30 

Note: The impulse responses are based on vector autoregressions with monthly data. The variables include: (1) a selected oil 

price measure, (2) industrial production, (3) hours, (4) the headline CPI, (5) nominal wages, and (6) the federal funds rate. 

The VARs included six lags and a linear time trend. Shocks to oil prices are defined using a standard Cholesky 

decomposition with oil ordered first. The oil shocks are standardized to be the same size in each sample period. The 

standard deviations for the shocks to each oil price measure are as follows: The nominal gas price shock is .013 in the early 

period and .038 in the late period. The shock to the Hamilton measure is .797 in the early period and 1.751 in the late period. 

The shock to the gas price adjusted for the cost of shortages is .045 in the early period and .038 in the late period. The shock 

to gasoline sentiment is 1.364 in the early period and 2.028 in the late period. 
43

Table 2 

Fluctuations in Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 

Period Share of GDP 

(percent) 

Standard deviation 

(percent quarterly 

changes, annual rate) 

Share of GDP 

volatility 

(percent) 

1967 to 

1985 100 4.3 100 

1986 to 

2007 100 2.1 100 Goods and 

services 

1986 to 

2009Q3 100 2.5 100 

1967 to 

1985 37 9.2 54 

1986 to 

2007 . . Goods 30 5.0 51 

1986 to 

2009Q3 30 5.6 50 

1967 to 

1985 4.0 38.1 22 

1986 to 

2007 3.5 19.2 14 . . Motor 

vehicles 

1986 to 

2009Q3 3.3 24.9 16 

Note: Data are from the National Income and Product Accounts. Share of GDP volatility attributable to each component is 

calculated as 100 less the variance of growth contribution of GDP excluding each component relative to the variance of total 

GDP. Figures for the early period exclude 1970Q4, when a long strike severely reduced motor vehicle output and sales. 
Figure 1. Petroleum Prices 

January 1967 through March 2010 

 Panel A: Price indexes Panel B: Real price indexes 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Log index (1990 = 100)

Gasoline CPI

Crude oil PPI (W561)

Refiners acquisition cost - imported crude oil

 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Log index (1990 = 100)

Gasoline CPI

Crude oil PPI (W561)

Refiners acquisition cost - imported crude oil

Note: Data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The real indexes normalize the changes in petroleum prices by the 

changes in headline consumer price inflation. Refiners acquisition cost data begin in 1974. For each series x, the log index is 

calculated as 100 100 log log 1990 +⋅ − [ () () xt x ( ) ( )]. 

Figure 2. Real Gasoline Prices 

January 1967 through March 2010 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Log index (1990 = 100)

Gasoline CPI

Gasoline CPI adjusted for shortages

Note. The dashed line represents the CPI for gasoline augmented with the shadow cost of waiting time in gas lines in 1973, 

1974, and 1979 as estimated by Frech and Lee (1987). The log index is calculated as in figure 1. 

44
Figure 3. Consumer Sentiment toward Gasoline 

Share of respondents to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumer Sentiment that cite high gasoline 

prices or shortages of gasoline as reasons that car buying conditions are poor 

January 1970 through April 2010 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Percent

Note. The gasoline price question was asked on a quarterly basis prior to January 1978 and the series was extrapolated to a 

monthly frequency by the authors. 

45
 Figure 4. Responses of Consumption to Two Gasoline Shocks 

 Shock to the gas price Shock to sentiment toward gasoline . 

 

 Response of gas price Response of sentiment toward gasoline 

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Index (1=peak)

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Index (1=peak)

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 Response of consumption excl. motor vehicles Response of consumption excl. motor vehicles

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percent 

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 

-0.20

-0.15

-0.10

-0.05

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percent 

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 Response of consumption of motor vehicles Response of consumption of motor vehicles

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percent 

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 

-1.00

-0.80

-0.60

-0.40

-0.20

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percent

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

Note. Solid dots indicate periods in which the responses are more than 2 standard deviations from zero, and open circles 

indicate periods in which the responses are between 1 and 2 standard deviations from zero. 

46
Figure 5. Motor Vehicle Industry in the U.S. Economy 

 Panel A: Output Panel B: Manufacturing Value Added 

 1967Q1 through 2009Q4 1967 through 2007 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Percent

Share of total GDP

Share of goods GDP

 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Percent

Share of total GDP

Share of goods manuf. value added

Note. Dashed lines represent 95% confidence intervals for the sample means in two periods: 1967 to 1985, and 1986 to 2007. 

Expenditure shares are based on nominal data. For value added, motor vehicles and parts is defined on a NAICS basis from 

1977 through 2007; earlier periods are plotted as best changes from the SIC definition. Goods manufacturing includes 

agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; mining; construction; and manufacturing. 

Figure 6. Vehicle Distance Traveled per Household 

January 1970 to October 2009 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

1450

1500

1550

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

2200

2300

Miles, ratio scale

Note. Data on vehicle miles are from Traffic Volume Trends, Office of Highway Policy Information in the Department of 

Transportation. Data on the number of households in the United States are from the U.S. Census Bureau. Data were 

smoothed with a 12-month moving average. 

47
Figure 7. Average Fuel Economy for the U.S. Light Vehicle Stock 

December 1970 to December 2009 

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

Miles per gallon

Cars

Light trucks

All light vehicles

Note. Data from the Transportation Energy Databook: Edition 28, U.S. Department of Energy. Data points for light trucks 

for 2003 and 2004 were interpolated. Light vehicles include cars and light trucks. 

Figure 8. Domestic Sales Shares for Selected Vehicle Segments 

Percent of domestic vehicles sold 

 January 1972 through December 1984 January 1996 through November 2009 

1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984

10

20

30

40

50

Percent

Standard cars

Small cars

 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

10

20

30

40

50

Percent

Full-size trucks, vans and utilities

Small cars and cross utilities

Note: Shares are calculated from U.S. sales of domestic light vehicles. Domestic light vehicles are defined as vehicles 

produced in North America. The category “small cars” include compact and subcompact cars; “standard cars” include full 

size and luxury cars. Cross-utility vehicles are small utility vehicles assembled on a car chassis. 

48
Figure 9. Responses to a Segment-shifting Shock to Sales 

 Response of sales Response of prices 

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Percent

Months

Small

Large

 -12

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Percent 

Months

Small

Large

 

 Response of capacity utilization Response of days’ supply 

70

85

100

115

130

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Percent

Months

Small

Large

 59

60

61

62

63

64

65

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Days

Months

Small

Large

 Response of the variance of days’ supply 

-100

-75

-50

-25

0

25

50

75

100

Variance

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

Months

Note. Graphs show impulse responses from the production model presented in equations (2) through (9). 

49
Figure 10. Domestic Days’ Supply of Selected Vehicle Segments 

 January 1972 through December 1984 January 1996 through November 2009 

1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984

20

40

60

80

100

120

Days

Standard cars

Small cars

 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

20

40

60

80

100

120

Days

full-size trucks, vans and utilities

Small cars and cross-utilities

Note: Days’ supply is calculated with end of month inventories and the three-month moving average of sales. Inventories 

include finished vehicles held at dealerships, assembly plants and vehicles in transit. Domestic vehicles refer to vehicles 

produced in North America. “Small cars” include compact and subcompact cars, and “standard cars” include full size and 

luxury cars. Cross-utility vehicles are small utility vehicles assembled on car chassis. 

Figure 11. Variance of Domestic Days’ Supply across Vehicle Segments 

January 1972 through December 2009 

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

0

300

600

900

1200

1500

days squared

Note: Domestic days’ supply is calculated from U.S. inventories and sales of vehicles assembled in North America. Variance 

is calculated across 5 car segments (subcompact, compact, intermediate, full-size, and luxury) and 6 light truck segments 

(compact vans, full-size vans, compact pickups, full-size pickups, cross-utility vehicles, and standard utility vehicles). 

50
Figure 12. Responses to a Shock to Consumer Sentiment toward Gasoline 

Combined sample: 1972 through 2009 

 Response of sentiment toward gasoline Response of days’ supply 

-1

0

1

2

3

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percent

Months

 -1

0

1

2

3

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Days

Months

 Response of the variance of days’ supply Response of capacity utilization 

-20

0

20

40

60

80

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Variance

Months

 -3

-2

-1

0

1

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percentage point

Months

 Note. Dashed lines enclose 95% confidence intervals. 

51
Figure 13. Responses to a Shock to Consumer Sentiment toward Gasoline 

Split samples: 1972 to 1985 and 1986 to 2009 

 Response of sentiment toward gasoline Response of days’ supply 

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Index (1=peak)

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 -0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Days

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 Response of the variance of days’ supply Response of capacity utilization 

-10

0

10

20

30

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Variance

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

 -1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percentage point

Months

1972 - 1985

1986 - 2009

Note. Solid dots indicate periods in which the responses are more than 2 standard deviations from zero, and open circles 

indicate periods in which the responses are between 1 and 2 standard deviations from zero. 

 

 

52
 Figure 14. Response of Capacity Utilization to Shocks to Consumer Sentiment toward 

Gasoline 

 Scenario: Level of days’ supply held constant Scenario: Variance of days’ supply held constant 

-1.0

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percentage point

Months

Baseline

Counterfact.

 -1.0

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percentage points

Months

Baseline

Counterfact.

Scenario: Level and variance of days’ supply held constant

-1.0

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48

Percentage points

Months

Baseline

Counterfact.

53