Abstract: The global oil price is an endless issue in research. After tumbling in twelve years, oil price comes back to its origin in 2003 with thirty dollar a barrel. In the paper, new evidence to long and short impact factors which influence oil prices is provided in the new stage of globalization in the new century, by applying several dynamic econometric models with monthly data. It is found that, firstly, international trade and the US dollar index are the most important positive impact factor and negative impact factor, respectively, in term of elasticity. As the real economic signal, the impact of GDP is weaker than that of international trade;secondly, the speculative proportion is a driver to oil price while its impact is dominated and induced by international trade; thirdly, the related variables for both the real and virtual economy are co-integrated with oil prices, working as the attractor in the short term volatility. It is also revealed that the oil price in the new century possesses the clear and robust lagged effect for one month momentum and two month inversion. Therefore, we should pay close attention to the international trade and the US dollar index for predicting the trend of global oil prices.

Key words: global oil prices, impact factors, real economy, virtual economy, international trade, the US dollar index