The effect that the recent decline in the price of oil has had on growth is far from clear, with
many observers at odds to explain why it does not seem to have provided a significant boost
to the world economy. This paper aims to address this puzzle by providing a systematic
analysis of the effect of oil price shocks on growth for 72 countries comprising 92.8% of world
GDP. We find that, on net, shocks driving the oil price in 2015 shaved off 0.2 percentage points
of growth for the median country in our sample, and 0.17 percentage points in GDP-weighted
terms. While increases in oil supply and shocks to oil-specific demand actually boosted growth
in 2015 (by about 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively), weak global demand more than
offset these gains, reducing growth by 0.8 percentage points. Counterfactual simulations for
the 72 countries in our sample underscore the importance of diversification, rather than low
levels of openness, in shielding against negative shocks to the world economy.
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