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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 68 No. 3 1986

Oil Price Shocks and the Dispersion Hypothesis

Prakash Loungani

Abstract

Recent research by David Lilien shows that a significant fraction of aggregate unemployment can be explained by the dispersion of employment growth across industries. This paper presents two new results in this area. First, it is shown that a significant fraction of the variation in Lilien's dispersion index is due to the differential impact of oil shocks across industries. Second, and more important, it is shown that, once the dispersion in employment growth due to oil shocks is accounted for, the residual dispersion has no explanatory power for unemployment.

DOI
10.2307/1926035
Volume
68
Issue
3
Pages
536
Sources
crossref openalex

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