英国留学课程论文|石油价格对全球经济的重要性

石油价格在过去几年急剧增加。尽管油价上涨，全球经济在世界各地区的增长依然强劲，，预计未来数年仍将如此.。与过去几十年相比，油价波动对全球经济增长的影响有所减少.。当石油价格在2003和2005之间飙升时，全球产量下降了约1.5%。
石油对经济增长的影响相当惊人.。许多公司被迫采取新的石油价格，改变使用他们的生产要素的模式，也取消无利可图的部门。这降低了行业的盈利能力。由于政府增加对进口和出口的保护主义，也会导致世界范围内的经济衰退。主要价格变动也可能发生，特别是在经济有许多垄断。世界各地的各种政策是不合适的，未能解决石油价格的影响。一些发展中国家的政府已经建立了保护消费者和企业免受价格上涨的控制体系.。然而，这些控制只在短期内保护增长；从长远来看，它影响金融稳定，并导致政府债务。政府应着眼于短期和长期的石油市场波动。

Oil prices have increased sharply over the past few years. Despite this rise in oil prices, growth of the global economy in all regions of the world is still strong and is expected to remain so for the next few years. The impact of oil price fluctuations on global economic growth has reduced as compared to previous decades. The global output lowered by approximately 1.5% when the oil prices shot up between 2003 and 2005 (EIA, 2008).

The impact that oil has on growth is quite striking. Many companies are forced to take up new oil prices, change the mode of using their factors of production and also do away with unprofitable sectors. This reduces the profitability of industries. It can also cause world wide recession due to reduction of real wealth as governments increase their protectionism on imports and exports. Major Price shifts may also occur especially in economies that have many monopolies. Various policies all over the world are unsuitable and fail to address the effects of oil prices. Governments from some developing countries have set up systems of control which protect consumers and businesses from the price increases. However, these controls only protect growth in the short-term; in the long run, it affects financial stability and leads a government into debt (Selim, 2008, 300). The governments should focus on both short-term and long-term oil market volatility.

There is a tendency of the players in the oil industry over investing or under investing in oil extraction projects and this leads to mixed cycles. The current high prices are as a result of the underinvestment during the 1990s when the prices were low. For instance, 1997-1999 was characterized by low oil prices which contributed to lowered expenditure in oil exploration. These low prices, however, led to the high prices in 1999 to 2000 (Wright, 2008, 750). .

In the near future, however, the oil prices may collapse again due to growth in emerging markets such as China and India among others. Most oil consuming countries have developed mechanisms to deal with the volatility of oil prices. However, poor global financial systems and rigidity in the economies and policies of oil producing countries has increased the concentration of risks in these producing countries. The producing countries should be assisted in managing oil price volatility and diversification of economic risks. This is the greatest problem that the global economy is expected to address in regards to oil. However, the task may be quite difficult because the oil producers prefer to maintain control over oil production. Non-oil production in the producing countries should be prevented from shocks by diversifying their economies. This could be achieved through improved risk sharing mechanisms in both production and financial markets. Increasing the flexibility of exchange rates could also assist in protecting non-oil production (Mabro, 2006).

Oil price shocks can make existing capital stock obsolete thus pausing production. This may lead to delays of both workers and capital especially in energy intensive industries. Poorer countries suffered considerably in the recent oil price shock. However, most oil consuming countries have become less vulnerable to these oil shocks than they were before. The reasons behind this lessened vulnerability include: Labor markets are more flexible, financial markets have become deeper, monetary policies have become better anchored, final demand in oil consumption has become greater and energy efficiency has also increased. As a matter of fact, the effects of oil supply shocks on global growth have reduced by almost half of what they previously were.

The volatility of oil prices greatly influences the movement of exchange rates. Oil price volatility, both long term and short term, remains a great problem to the oil producing countries despite its effects on the global economy. Buffer stock supplies in oil can be used to alleviate the short term volatility while the long term volatility can be reduced by increased industry transparency.

With the world population rapidly growing, we expect oil production to be on the rise otherwise some countries will loose in terms of per capita consumption. This will be so because countries will increase protectionism in a bid to keep oil demand more level. More oil will be required to maintain the lifestyles of the countrya

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