The Coal Price Shock and Its Impacts on Indonesian Macroeconomic Variables: An SVAR Approach

Purpose: Changes in energy prices can be considered as one of the factors of macroeconomic uncertainty. This study examines the impact of coal price shocks on Indonesian macroeconomic variables. Research design, data and methodology: The structural vector autoregressive model is used on monthly data from January 2010 to June 2023. Results: The impulse response functions indicate that coal price shocks have a negative impact on output and a positive impact on CPI (Consumer Price Index) and the effective real exchange rate. Following a shock in coal price growth, output growth takes twelve months, CPI growth takes fifteen months, and the effective real exchange rate takes seventeen months to reach equilibrium. Coal price growth shocks generally do not have a significant contribution to the variation in output, CPI growth and effective real exchange rate. On average over a twelve-month simulation, coal price growth shocks contribute 2.06 percent to output growth variation, 0.0042 percent to CPI growth variation, and 0.0046 percent to effective real exchange rate growth variation. Conclusions: This study finds that the impact of rising coal prices, as an energy source in Indonesia, can be offset by coal export revenues. This is possible considering that 70-80% of Indonesia's coal is exported.