Most oil-producing countries have now nationalised their oil reserves and are pursuing their own pricing and marketing policies; in recent years some of them have attempted to extend their influence over the oil market by undertaking processing activities downstream from oil production. What...

Many of the present difficulties of the world economy have been blamed on the two oil-price explosions of the 1970s. Professor Chichilnisky shows that, at least in the case of the oil-importing developing countries, the negative effects have been overestimated. In fact, in some respects the oil...

The threat of a major debt crisis is presently hanging over the international financial community like Damocles' sword. Behind the crisis lies the flood of petrodollars into the financial institutions of the industrial world since the mid 1970s and the consequent large-scale lending to...

Some forecasters recently have predicted that OPEC countries with continuing current account surpluses will shift from long-term to short-term investments in the near future to improve their liquidity positions. However, careful study of a variety of data, including historical patterns, suggests...

For a time in the mid-1970s, “Third World solidarity” was at its zenith and the prospect of a new international economic order appeared to be within reach. But by the Cancun Summit in 1981 the schism between the oil exporting developing countries and the non-oil exporting developing...

The OPEC price conference in Geneva on May 25-26, 1981 did not resolve the disagreement among OPEC member countries over official prices. As a result of this stalemate, Saudi Arabia with its intention to moderate prices will in the foreseeable future probably not be prepared to make substantial...

The way in which international trade in crude oil is conducted has changed drastically since the beginning of 1979. Who has access to crude oil in producing countries, in what quantity, at what prices, and for how long is in question. Jochen Mohnfeld analyses, recent trends and future...