Oil prices and unemployment: empirical evidence from Brazil

Abstract

In this study we present empirical evidence for the existence of a long-run relation between the rate of unemployment in Brazil and the price of energy plus the real interest rate. After establishing the existence of cointegration among those variables, we estimate the long-run coefficients relating the real interest rate and the real price of oil to the rate of unemployment. Our results show that a doubling of the price of oil tends to bring about an absolute increase of 1.6 percentage points in the unemployment rate.