What matters for consumer sentiment in the euro area? World crude oil price or retail gasoline price?

Abstract

We investigate the link between crude oil prices, retail gasoline prices and consumer sentiment in the euro area. Our results reveal that consumer sentiment and its key components deteriorate notably as a response to positive shocks to real gasoline prices at the pump. On the contrary, positive oil-specific demand shocks do not trigger such a strong deterioration of consumer sentiment. The analysis is further refined to analyse the effects of these shocks to six key sub-components of consumer sentiment, which include household finance, conditions for buying durable products and the macroeconomy.