Opec Surpluses and World Financial Stability

Extract

The world is still recovering from the shock of radically higher energy prices triggered by the October 1973 war in the Mideast. In the months following the oil embargo and the quadrupled price of petroleum, there seemed to be a very real possibility that the strains imposed on world markets and institutions, and indeed on national economies, would cause a fracture in one or another part of the complex linkages that make up the world economic system.