Will Peak Demand Roil Global Oil Markets?

“Peak oil”—the notion that the depletion of accessible petroleum deposits would soon lead to declining global oil output and an upward trend in prices—was widely debated in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Proponents of the peak supply thesis turned out to be wrong, given the introduction of fracking and other new extraction methods. Now the notion of peak oil is back, but in reverse form, with global demand set to flatten and then fade amid growing use of EVs and other low-carbon technologies. The arrival of “peak demand” would turn global oil markets into a zero-sum game: Supply growth in one region or field would simply push down prices, driving out higher-cost producers elsewhere. A key question is how U.S. producers would adapt to the new market environment.
Can Electric Cars Power China’s Growth?

China’s aggressive policies to develop its battery-powered electric vehicle (BEV) industry have been successful in making the country the dominant producer of these vehicles worldwide. Going forward, BEVs will likely claim a growing share of global motor vehicle sales, helped along by subsides and mandates implemented in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, China’s success in selling BEVs may not contribute much to its GDP growth, owing both to the maturity of its motor vehicle sector and the strong tendency for countries to protect this high-profile industry.
An Update on the U.S.–China Phase One Trade Deal

A Liberty Street Economics post from last summer by Matthew Higgins and Thomas Klitgaard contained an assessment of the Phase One trade agreement between the United States and China. The authors of that note found that, depending on how successfully the deal was implemented, the impact on U.S. economic growth could have been substantially larger than originally foreseen by many of its critics, as a result of the fact that the pandemic had depressed the U.S. economy far below its potential growth path. Here we take another look at these considerations with the benefit of an additional year’s worth of trade data and a much different economic environment in the United States.
Just Released: Hints of Increased Hardship in America’s Oil‑Producing Counties
Andrew F. Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw Today, the New York Fed released the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the first quarter of 2016. Overall debt saw one of its larger increases since deleveraging ended, while delinquency rates for the United States continued to improve and remain […]