Un-anticipated oil price shocks and fiscal austerity in OPEC+ nations

Abstract This study explores the extent to which OPEC+ nations have abandoned fiscal austerity in response to both anticipated and unexpected oil price fluctuations. To analyze this, we construct fiscal austerity indicators that reflect reduced budgets, increased revenues, and lower budget deficits. Additionally, we dissect oil price shocks into positive and negative, as well as random and cyclical components. By utilizing the novel asymmetric CS-ARDL technique within an error correction framework, we assess how fiscal austerity—incorporating all individual indicators—reacts to both negative and positive oil price shocks. Our findings indicate that oil price shocks hinder OPEC+ countries’ ability to uniformly implement fiscal austerity in the long term. In the short term, however, fiscal austerity exhibits an asymmetric response to oil price shocks, particularly adapting austerity measures in response to negative shocks. Through robustness checks, we note a diverse response of austerity measures to anticipated and unanticipated oil price changes, influenced by the fiscal resilience of the economy. Our empirical results offer significant policy insights.