Energy Markets and the Macroeconomy Conference

Energy markets and the macroeconomy interact in many ways. Shocks to energy prices, whether associated with government policies, geopolitical events, new technologies, or changes in market structure, can affect both short-run macroeconomic outcomes such as employment and inflation, as well as long-term economic growth. These relationships are likely to have evolved over time for various reasons, including both the decline in energy purchases as a share of GDP in the US and other economies and the growing dominance of the US in global oil and gas production in recent decades. Better understanding of these interactions can improve macroeconomic analysis of potential responses to energy market shocks, as well as the broader design of energy policy. 

The NBER, with the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is launching a research project on energy markets and the macroeconomy. It will be directed by Lint Barrage (ETH Zurich) and James Stock (Harvard University). It will bring together a diverse range of researchers from energy economics, macroeconomics, and related fields at a capstone research conference on December 10–11, 2026 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The NBER seeks research papers or proposals from researchers in academia, government, and the corporate sector. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• What are the macroeconomic effects of energy price shocks or unexpected changes in access to energy sources? What can be learned from the oil and gas shocks since the 1970s, and do such lessons apply today?
• What are the potential macroeconomic consequences of the transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources? How will this transition affect key macroeconomic indicators such as investment, consumption, growth, unemployment, inflation, and asset prices in both the short- and long-run? What are the implications of this transition for economic fluctuations and business cycles? How do the details of the way in which the transition is carried out affect the macroeconomic impacts? How will these impacts be distributed across different locations and groups?
• How can policymakers balance the goals of energy security and price stability with the transition to cleaner energy sources? How do intermediate fuels and technologies such as natural gas, grey hydrogen, carbon capture, etc. affect the costs and options in this balance?
• How do energy markets, technologies, and policy affect financial stability? Do financial frictions affect the energy transition and/or the macroeconomic response to energy and climate policies, both in levels and their fluctuations? What do Central Banks and supervisory authorities need to know about the impacts and interactions of their current policies and potential future activities on energy markets and outcomes? How do changes in energy markets, technologies, and policies interact with fiscal conditions? For example, how do changes in local energy resource values and exploitation rates such as the coal decline or the shale gas revolution affect local public finances, borrowing costs, and investment rates? In turn, what are the impacts of fiscal policies at both the local and federal levels, such as severance taxes and various energy tax expenditures, on energy resource deployments? 
• How do public expenditures, subsidies in energy markets – including policies such as those in the US Inflation Reduction Act - affect regional and national economic aggregates such as output, employment, investment and growth?
• How does consideration of macroeconomic frictions and fluctuations affect our understanding of energy policy instrument options and their respective costs and impacts? 
• How do financial markets respond to energy market changes and policy risks, and how do these responses affect investment, output, and capital allocations?How does technological innovation in the energy sector impact the long-run growth potential of the macroeconomy?
• How do energy prices and policies affect innovation in the energy sector?

The tools and approach of the research studies may be drawn from many fields, including energy and environmental economics, macroeconomics, productivity and growth economics, and monetary economics. Submissions from researchers with and without NBER affiliations and from early career scholars are welcome. Both completed papers and proposals will be considered. To be considered for inclusion on the program, submission materials must be uploaded by 11:59pm ET on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Decisions about which eight papers will be included on the program will be announced in late December 2025. Please do not submit papers that will be published by December 2026. All submissions must be accompanied by a comprehensive conflict of interest statement that describes any financial or other interests of the researchers that might relate to the proposed work, and in particular that discloses any ties to the energy industry. 

In addition to presenters and discussants, the conference will also include a number of outstanding graduate students to attend. Please submit nomination letters by 11:59pm ET on November 19, 2025 at the link indicated below. Students may self-nominate; those who are expecting to complete their graduate studies in 2026, as well as those who are at an earlier stage in their doctoral studies and who are carrying out research on conference-related issues, are welcome. 

The NBER will pay an honorarium to authors and will cover the hotel and economy class travel cost for up to two authors per paper to attend the conference. There will also be a virtual pre-conference in May 2026 for authors of papers selected for the program to gather feedback about plans and ongoing work. Authors may be invited to submit post-conference revised papers to a special issue of a peer-reviewed field journal in energy or environmental economics, or may choose to submit individually elsewhere. Please direct questions about this project to confer@nber.org.