Editor's Note: This is an edited transcription of the general session of the January 1998 Pacific Rim Allied Economic Organizations 3rd Biennial Conference, held in Bangkok, Thailand. Copyright 1998 Western Economic Association International.

The oil price decline during 1986 sparked a renewed debate over how oil price changes affect the economy and whether the effects of oil price declines are equal and opposite those of oil price increases. This article reviews theoretical and more casual arguments concerning this issue and...

The Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) will decontrol gas prices in 1985, and there is concern about its inflation and output effects. In this investigation of these concerns, two misapprehensions are remedied. First, inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon so that a rise in energy prices...