Category Archives: energy

Oil shocks and economic recessions

I’ve just completed a new research paper that surveys the history of the oil industry with a particular focus on the events associated with significant changes in the price of oil. Here I report the paper’s summary of oil market disruptions and economic downturns since the Second World War. Every recession (with one exception) was preceded by an increase in oil prices, and every oil market disruption (with one exception) was followed by an economic recession.

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The first oil shock

A research paper by Eyal Dvir of Boston College and Ken Rogoff of Harvard suggests some interesting parallels between the recent behavior of oil prices and what was observed at the very beginning of the industry. I’ve been doing some related research on the history of the oil industry that looks into the events behind historical oil price shocks. Here I describe the first oil shock, which occurred a century and a half ago.

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