Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed.

PART 2 How Markets Work

Chapter 5 of 36 Elasticity and Its Application

Section 19 of 22

Some of the most disruptive events of the world's economy have been in the world oil market.

From 1973 to 1974 the inflation-adjusted price of oil rose more than 50 percent.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members colluded to raise the price of oil to increase their incomes, accomplishing this by reducing the amount of oil they collectively supplied.

A few years later OPEC restricted supply to raise prices again and from 1979 to 1981 the price of oil doubled.

But OPEC could not maintain the high price, mainly because cooperation among members broke down

· from 1982 to 1985 the price of oil fell about 10 percent per year

· in 1986 the price of oil fell another 45 percent

· by 1990 the inflation-adjusted price of oil was back to the 1970 price, and stayed there through the 1990s

Since then rising oil prices have mostly been caused by increasing world demand including from China.

The oil price swings of the 1970s and 1980s show how supply and demand behave differently in the short run and in the long run.

In the short run, both supply and demand for oil are relatively inelastic.

The oil supply was inelastic in the short run mainly because these could not quickly change

· discovery of new oil resources

· non-OPEC oil supplying countries increase oil supplies

· consumers shifting to smaller gas-efficient cars

· development of new technologies reducing quantity of oil products demanded

… …

discovery of new oil resources

aratana sekiyu shigen no hakken

新たな石油資源の発見


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

HAT Manifesto Part 1/3 - Rubric Cube - 241201 revision