Oil Prices and Debt

Abstract

Problems related to oil, and in particular those associated with fluctuations in its price, have been prominent in the period since 1973. Considerable responsibility for the world’s relatively poor macroeconomic performance during the mid to late 1970s and the early 1980s has been attributed to the big rise in the real price of oil, the conventional argument being that this had a simultaneously cost inflationary and demand deflationary effect. Towards the mid-1980s, however, the price of oil began to fall and in 1986 it fell quite dramatically. But it is not clear that this decline has had or will have a symmetrical impact on the world economy.

Originally published in Royal Bank of Scotland Review, no. 154, June 1987.