Sinkender Rohölpreis stärkt Konjunktur
During this summer the German economy lost momentum and expectations were revised downwards. However, the marked reduction of crude oil prices is likely to stimulate the economy in the next year. A decrease of the oil price by 25$/b will reduce Germany's expenditure on oil imports by € 14 bn, which is appr. 0.5% of GDP. This will boost primarily private consumption. Moreover, cheaper oil will also stimulate the economy in other oil importing countries. Therefore, exports will be more vivid, too. With capacity utilization rising, this stimulus will promote business investment. To sum up, we forecast GDP to grow by 1.5% in this year and the next year; about 0.4 percentage points of which will be due to lower oil prices in the next year. The labor market will continue to improve, despite of the expected negative effects of the introduction of a minimum wage at the beginning of 2015. Due to lower oil prices inflation will remain moderate at 0.9% resp. 1.0%. The fiscal balance surplus will be smaller than in 2014 since expenditures of the social insurance are going to rise.
Döhrn, R., G. Barabas, A. Fuest, H. Gebhardt, P. An de Meulen, M. Micheli, S. Rujin, T. Schmidt and L. Zwick (2014), Sinkender Rohölpreis stärkt Konjunktur. RWI Konjunkturberichte, 65, 4, 5-16