Forecasting oil futures price volatility with economic policy uncertainty: a CARR-MIDAS model

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a conditional autoregressive range-mixed-data sampling (CARR-MIDAS) model that incorporates economic policy uncertainty (EPU) to predict the crude oil futures price volatility (range). We apply the proposed model to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures price ranges and four EPU indices, namely the Global EPU, US EPU, China EPU and Russia EPU. Empirical results show that all the four EPU indices have a significantly negative impact on the oil futures price volatility, and the EPU indices are informative for forecasting the oil futures price volatility. Moreover, the China EPU index outperforms the other EPU indices in forecasting the oil futures price volatility.