The impact of oil price on the growth, inflation, unemployment and budget deficit of Vietnam

Abstract

In oil exporting countries, especially OPEC members, oil price fluctuation has significant impacts on their economies. Herein, just a drop in the oil price causes directly many adverse effects, such as inflation, falls in economic growth, and increases in unemployment. However with a country which not only exports crude oil but also imports petroleum as Vietnam, it is not easy to determine falling or a rising oil prices is beneficial to the economy. Therefore, this paper aims to carry out a numerical analysis on the influences of oil prices on the macroeconomic variables of Vietnam, including inflation, growth rate, budget deficit and unemployment, during a period from 2000 to 2015. By using a vector auto regression (VAR) model, it is realized that a rise in oil prices would lead to higher inflation and budget deficit in Vietnam while its impacts on the GDP growth and unemployment are unclear.