“Economic Impacts of Energy Development: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Implications”
Tahereh Alavi Hojjat

Abstract
The technology for energy extraction changed significantly during the late 1990s and early 2000s, which affected the production and price of energy. This energy boom has revered long downward trend in U.S oil and natural gas production. This increased has opened new possibilities for the U.S economy. A key question is whether this new abundant and accessible natural resources has positive effect on U.S economic conditions through higher demand for labor in the energy sector and spillover spending in the local economy. The purpose of this paper is to review the impacts of changes in energy price on the economy; evaluating gains and challenges with a particular emphasis on changes in energy prices on employment in the U.S. Using Rendon Effect Regression we examined how changes in U.S. oil and natural gas production may affect employment. Our result shows that there is a positive impacts of lowering energy price on employment. Some of the states providing new energy resources are becoming less economically diversified and more economically vulnerable to energy price declines and benefiting more from price increase. As a result of innovations such as hydraulic fracturing, some government, industry, and academic observers have predicted that the United States will soon become energy self-sufficient and possibly become a net exporter of natural gas and petroleum. Fracking, renewable energy are just a few of the things that have reshaped the energy picture over the past 20 years, how much it will change in the next 20 years and policy implications are discussed.

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