Oil price increases and the persistent OPEC current account surpluses were considered the main problems of economic development in many industrial and developing countries long after the first oil crisis. Since 1983, however, the OPEC surpluses have been completely absorbed and the official base...

The existing balances on the current accounts of the major industrialised countries have given rise to demands, addressed particularly to German economic policy-makers, which amount to a revitalisation of the "locomotive theory". However, were the world economy once more to be "reflated" in...