The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks

The halving of oil prices, which happened in a short period between late 2014 and the first months of 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. Even if the oil producing sector normally employs a small group of wo...

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Main Authors: Bussolo, Maurizio, Luongo, Patrizia
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/115331490812250507/The-distributive-impact-of-terms-of-trade-shocks
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26357
id okr-10986-26357
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-263572021-06-08T14:42:48Z The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks Bussolo, Maurizio Luongo, Patrizia TERMS OF TRADE PRICE SHOCKS REDISTRIBUTION POVERTY INEQUALITY MACRO-MICRO SIMULATION SHARED PROSPERITY OIL PRICES The halving of oil prices, which happened in a short period between late 2014 and the first months of 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. Even if the oil producing sector normally employs a small group of workers and oil export revenues tend to be concentrated in a few firms and in government accounts, these relative price changes have economy-wide effects and significant distributive impacts. This paper describes and quantifies the channels of transmission from the drop in oil prices, to changes in welfare distribution at the household level. Using a macro-micro simulation model, the paper assesses how this shock affects poverty, inequality, and shared prosperity for the case of the Russian Federation. The oil price reduction generates a reverse Dutch disease that impacts sectoral employment, factor returns, and consumption prices. It causes a contraction of employment and wages in more skill-intensive (non-tradable) sectors, and a reduction in consumption prices that is more pronounced for nonfood than for food goods. When these shifts are mapped to changes in incomes at the micro level, all households are affected. Poverty rates could increase by 1 to 4 percentage points, depending on the poverty line used. At the US$10 a day threshold, for example, 4.1 million additional people fall into poverty. Along the consumption distribution, richer people are affected more than those in the bottom 40 percent. However, this minor progressive impact may be reversed due to increases in unemployment and cuts in social programs (transfers). 2017-04-13T17:20:38Z 2017-04-13T17:20:38Z 2017-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/115331490812250507/The-distributive-impact-of-terms-of-trade-shocks http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26357 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8016 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic TERMS OF TRADE
PRICE SHOCKS
REDISTRIBUTION
POVERTY
INEQUALITY
MACRO-MICRO SIMULATION
SHARED PROSPERITY
OIL PRICES
spellingShingle TERMS OF TRADE
PRICE SHOCKS
REDISTRIBUTION
POVERTY
INEQUALITY
MACRO-MICRO SIMULATION
SHARED PROSPERITY
OIL PRICES
Bussolo, Maurizio
Luongo, Patrizia
The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8016
description The halving of oil prices, which happened in a short period between late 2014 and the first months of 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. Even if the oil producing sector normally employs a small group of workers and oil export revenues tend to be concentrated in a few firms and in government accounts, these relative price changes have economy-wide effects and significant distributive impacts. This paper describes and quantifies the channels of transmission from the drop in oil prices, to changes in welfare distribution at the household level. Using a macro-micro simulation model, the paper assesses how this shock affects poverty, inequality, and shared prosperity for the case of the Russian Federation. The oil price reduction generates a reverse Dutch disease that impacts sectoral employment, factor returns, and consumption prices. It causes a contraction of employment and wages in more skill-intensive (non-tradable) sectors, and a reduction in consumption prices that is more pronounced for nonfood than for food goods. When these shifts are mapped to changes in incomes at the micro level, all households are affected. Poverty rates could increase by 1 to 4 percentage points, depending on the poverty line used. At the US$10 a day threshold, for example, 4.1 million additional people fall into poverty. Along the consumption distribution, richer people are affected more than those in the bottom 40 percent. However, this minor progressive impact may be reversed due to increases in unemployment and cuts in social programs (transfers).
format Working Paper
author Bussolo, Maurizio
Luongo, Patrizia
author_facet Bussolo, Maurizio
Luongo, Patrizia
author_sort Bussolo, Maurizio
title The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
title_short The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
title_full The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
title_fullStr The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
title_full_unstemmed The Distributive Impact of Terms of Trade Shocks
title_sort distributive impact of terms of trade shocks
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2017
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/115331490812250507/The-distributive-impact-of-terms-of-trade-shocks
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26357
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