Deregulation of Diesel Pricing in India and Its Implication on the Oil Price - Macro Economy Relationship

The severity of impact of crude oil price shocks on the macro economy of an oil importing country are thought to be moderated by regulating domestic prices of petroleum products. India has adopted a deregulated regime of pricing of bulk purchases of diesel in January 2013 moving away from a controlled and subsidised pricing system. This paper investigates how this change has affected (A) the influence of crude price changes in determining diesel prices in India using an ARDL framework and (B) the severity of impact of international crude oil price changes on the macro economy of India using a SVAR framework. Based on monthly data between 2004 April and 2017 February, we find that in the post deregulation phase (1) diesel prices are influenced by crude oil prices much more than before; (2) the intensity of impact of crude oil price changes on inflation has increased; (3) the response of monetary policy to crude oil price changes have become statistically insignificant. We also find that the impact of crude price changes on output has always been insignificant