This study examines the relationship between unemployment rates and oil price, oil price uncertainty, and interest rates. This relation is examined by testing for both cointegration and causality between the variables. By employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method this study managed to examine the long-run cointegration between unemployment rates oil price, oil price uncertainty, and interest rates. A modification of the ARDL method is the error correction method which was used to find the short-run dynamics and the speed of convergence back to equilibrium after a shock. Fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) regression was then applied to find the optimal estimates of the long-run coefficients for the regressions. The Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test is used to find the direction of causality between the variables. These tests were conducted on Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland on monthly data from January 2008 to February 2020. A cointegration relationship was found for Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The long-run coefficients from the FMOLS regression showed that increased oil prices lead to increased unemployment rates for Sweden and Denmark. All countries except Denmark show evidence of causality from oil prices on unemployment indicating a strong relationship between these two variables. Some countries show causality from oil price uncertainty and interest rates on unemployment rates. These results provide important guidance for policymakers on how to design good economic policies.

<p>The dependence on oil has increased in many nations as a result of increasing industrialization and oil has been the factor of many crises as well as many wars. This paper examines how the price of oil affects the unemployment in Sweden. The case of Sweden is interesting since its politics are very different compared to other industrialized countries when it comes to unemployment and benefits. Our main objective is to see whether a change in the oil price will cause a change in unemployment at a later stage. We perform linear regression analysis relating current changes in the variables and Granger causality tests to conclude if there exists a direct relationship.</p><p>The result we received from our linear regression test on current changes and our Granger causality test showed a relationship between the price of oil and unemployment in Sweden. In the linear regression relating current changes in these variables, a positive relationship was indicated. Due to the fact that some of the coefficient estimates are positive and some are negative in the Granger causality regressions, we can not conclude whether an increase in the price of oil will cause a positive or negative effect on unemployment.</p>

This thesis is composed of three chapters, which can be read independently. The first chapter investigates how oil price volatility affects the investment decisions for a panel of Japanese firms. The model is estimated using a system generalized method of moments technique for panel data. The results are presented to show that there is a U-shaped relationship between oil price volatility and Japanese firm investment. The results from subsamples of these data indicate that this U-shaped relationship is more significant for oil-intensive firms and small firms. The second chapter aims to examine the underlying causes of changes in real oil price and their transmission mechanisms in the Japanese stock market. I decompose real oil price changes into three components; namely, oil supply shock, aggregate demand shock and oil-specific demand shock, and then estimate the dynamic effects of each component on stock returns using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model. I find that the responses of aggregate Japanese real stock returns differ substantially with different underlying causes of oil price changes. In the long run, oil shocks account for 43% of the variation in the Japanese real stock returns. The response of Japanese real stock returns to oil price shocks can be attributed in its entirety to the cash flow variations. The third chapter tests the robustness of SVAR and investigates the impact of oil price shocks on the different U.S. stock indices. I find that the responses of real stock returns of alternate stock indices differ substantially depending on the underlying causes of the oil price increase. However, the magnitude and length of the effect depends on the firm size. The response of U.S. stock returns to oil price shocks can be attributed to the variations of expected discount rates and expected cash flows.

Very little has been written about the effect that oil prices have on manufacturing output in the United States. This paper aims to shed light about the effect of oil prices, oil imports, and GDP on U.S. manufacturing output through a four-variable vector autoregression and explain the timing of these shocks through impulse response functions. Empirical results find that oil prices are significant in determining manufacturing output, but manufacturing output is also significant in determining oil prices.

Companies in the 21st century are exposed to a variety of pressures to respond to a plethora of environmental issues. Understanding how these issues impact companies over time is, therefore, important for corporate practitioners and policy makers alike. This thesis investigates the state and evolution of corporate environmental strategy with the help of a multi-study, longitudinal research design. Theoretically grounded in complexity theory, a conceptual framework is developed that portrays organisations as open systems within which agents interact and attempt to improve organisational fitness. By conceptualising the organisational metaphor of ‘rugged fitness landscapes’, firms are depicted as complex adaptive systems searching for peaks on a constantly changing fitness landscape in order to guarantee economic long-term profit and survival. While study one examines environmental responses among a stratified sample of UK companies through repeated interviews both in 2006 and 2008, the second study draws on KLD data from S&P500 corporations for the period 1991 to 2006 by distinguishing between changes at firm and at population level. The findings suggest that the state and evolution of corporate environmental strategy are effectively subordinated to contributing towards firms’ fitness, whereby firms mostly attempt to remain profitable and obtain social legitimacy. Even over longer periods of time this behaviour has not changed markedly, except that starting from around 2004 higher levels of oil prices and lower interest rates have spurred more proactive environmental changes among a number of firms. Equally, different motivations, individuals and contextual factors appear to influence the varying patterns of evolution. The thesis fills a gap in the existing literature with respect to the lack of conceptual and empirical contributions about the evolution of corporate environmental strategy by providing new insights into how firms are responding to environmental issues over time and by extending various strands of theory.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether economic growth in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) can be explained by changes in the oil price, with a focus on selected macroeconomic variables. We will also investigate if there are any differences in oil price effects on economic growth between the BRIC countries and the western world (G7). The model used is a Koyck transformation model developed by Leendert Marinus Koyck in 1954, which converts a distributed lag model into an autoregressive model. The data used in this thesis covers 11 countries and their quarterly data for the variables: real interest rate, oil price, US dollar exchange rates and current account (exports-imports), which are all economically and theoretical linked to the dependent variable, real GDP. Our distributed lag model will include past values of real GDP as well as oil price. These explanatory variables will be lagged up to 4 periods, where one period is equal to one quarter of a year.   The findings showed a relationship between oil price changes and economic growth. However there are no consistent results for how the oil price affects GDP, neither for the BRIC countries nor the western countries. Furthermore, in the case of the BRIC countries, the cluster generated divided results: A possible reason for these differences were oil exports/imports. For the western world, oil price changes and economic growth is positively correlated and the reason is probably the already existing oil-dependency. In our model both positive and negative results were found, but also an unknown variable affecting some of the countries. Whether it is consistent in each case needs to be analyzed further. From the findings and previous research one can conclude that there are no certain results of how oil price changes affect economic growth.

The dependence on oil has increased in many nations as a result of increasing industrialization and oil has been the factor of many crises as well as many wars. This paper examines how the price of oil affects the unemployment in Sweden. The case of Sweden is interesting since its politics are very different compared to other industrialized countries when it comes to unemployment and benefits. Our main objective is to see whether a change in the oil price will cause a change in unemployment at a later stage. We perform linear regression analysis relating current changes in the variables and Granger causality tests to conclude if there exists a direct relationship. The result we received from our linear regression test on current changes and our Granger causality test showed a relationship between the price of oil and unemployment in Sweden. In the linear regression relating current changes in these variables, a positive relationship was indicated. Due to the fact that some of the coefficient estimates are positive and some are negative in the Granger causality regressions, we can not conclude whether an increase in the price of oil will cause a positive or negative effect on unemployment.

Traditional literature on energy economics gives a central role to exogenous political events (supply shocks) or to global economic growth (aggregate demand shock) in modeling the oil market. However, more recent literature claims that the increased precautionary demand for oil triggered by increased uncertainty about a future oil supply shortfall is also driving the price of oil. Based on this motivation, in the first chapter, we propose to build a DSGE model to explore macroeconomic consequences of precautionary demand motives in the crude oil market. The intuition behind the precautionary demand is that since firms, using oil as an input in their production process, are concerned about the future oil prices, it is reasonable to think that in the case of uncertainty about future oil supply (such as a highly expected war in the Middle East), they will buy futures and/or forward contracts to guarantee a future price and quantity. We simulate the effects of demand shocks in the oil market on macroeconomic variables, such as GDP and inflation. We find that under baseline Taylor-type interest rate rule, real oil price, inflation and output loss overshoot and go down below steady state at the next period if uncertainties are not realized. However, if the shock is realized, i.e. followed by an actual supply shock, the effect on inflation and output loss is high and persistent. Second chapter analyzes the effect of storage market on the monetary policy formulation as a response to an oil price shock. Some recent literature suggests that although high oil prices contributed to recessions, they have never had a pivotal role in the creation of those economic downturns. A general consensus is that the decline in output and employment was due to the rise in interest rates, resulting from the Fed’s endogenous response to the higher inflation induced by oil price shocks. However, traditional literature assumes that oil price shocks are exogenous to the U.S economy and they ignore the storage market for the crude oil. In this regard, a model with an endogenous (demand shock) or exogenous (supply shock) price shock may produce a totally different monetary policy proposal when there exists a market for storage for the crude oil. The rationale behind this idea is that when goods’ prices are sticky in the economy, the monetary authority can effect the level of inventories through the changes in the real interest rates. Thus, lower interest rate rules, as proposed in the literature, will cause additional oil supply scarcity in the spot market. Therefore, an optimal monetary policy that maximizes the welfare in the economy should consider the adverse affect of low interest rates on the crude oil market.

This paper empirically investigates the cointegrated relationship between oil price and nominal exchange rate of US Dollar/ Norwegian Krone (USD/NOK) which is covering a time period from 2001 to 2011. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Engle-Granger test and Error Correction Mechanism are employed for this research. This paper concludes that there is a cointegrated relationship between oil price and nominal exchange rate of USD/NOK in the long term.

Since petroleum is a kind of exhaustive resource, it can not be regenerated after being consumed. And petroleum is distributed extremely uneven in the world, more than half of petroleum is distributed in the Middle East area. In the recent years, the oil price was so fluctuating and broke the record again and again. However, the productivity of petroleum in Taiwan is very low and we are a price taker. So it turns to be important that how the oil price affects the economy. According to Economics, high oil price often causes the staginflation. In the purpose of this study we examine the long run relationship between oil price and personal income in Taiwan by cointegration theory. And we find that there indeed exists a negative longrun relationship. In addition, we consider a nonlinear model, Threshold Vector Error Correction Model, to test a threhold effect in the long run relationship between variables. Finally we have a result that there is a threshold cointegrating relationship between the oil price and personal income in Taiwan.