How do mobility restrictions and social distancing during COVID-19 affect the crude oil price?
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We develop an air mobility index and use the newly developed Apple's driving trend index to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the crude oil price. We use quantile regression and stationary and non-stationary extreme value models to study the impact. We find that both the air mobility index and driving trend index significantly influence lower and upper quantiles as well as the median of the WTI crude oil price. The extreme value model suggests that an event like COVID-19 may push oil prices to a negative territory again as the air mobility decreases drastically during such pandemics.
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