Abstract
Various authors have shown that each oil shock in the past 40 years has had statistically significant impacts on subsequent macroeconomic activity in the United States. Through these economic effects, oil shocks affect Federal revenues and expenditures and hence public debt. Published Federal budget scenarios do not currently reflect these impacts of oil shocks. I synthesize, in this paper, literature quantifying the impact of oil price increases on GDP growth and use that information to modify current long-term Federal budget models to present scenarios of how oil shocks are likely to affect long-term Federal debt. I argue that modeling the impact of oil price increases on long-term public debt could inform public policies, particularly those relating to Federal investments in energy conservation.