This paper evaluates the potential gains from using oil prices to forecast a variety of measures of inflation, economic activity, and monetary policy-related variables. With a few exceptions, oil prices do not have any predictive content for these variables. This finding is robust to the use of rolling forecast windows, the use of industry-level data, changes in the forecast horizon, and allowing for nonlinearities. (JEL Q43, E37, C32) 2007 Western Economic Association International.
