Thailand’s Energy Security: Strategic Petroleum Reserve and its Economic Impacts

摘要

I develop a simple DSGE model to investigate the economic consequences of the SPR for a“small oil-importing economy”. This economy is subject to the risk of oil shocks. Governmentpolicy makers attempt to mitigate the macroeconomic impacts from the shocks by establishing aSPR. The assigned values of the parameters in the model aim to reflect the basic characteristicsof Thai economy. The simulation results show that the impulse responses of key economicvariables for different degrees of oil shocks follow the same pattern. When the degree of theshock increases, the magnitude of the stock drawdown increases, which helps lower the negativeimpact on the economic welfare. I examine the welfare effects from alternative sizes of the SPRand the opportunity cost for the economy because it has to sacrifice more resources to maintainand operate the SPR. This lowers the level of resources available for production andconsumption in the long run. There exists a trade off relationship between the sacrificed welfarein the long run for the less volatile welfare in the short run.