Counter-shock

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC ''imperium'' was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak. Compared to the much-debated 1973 `oil shock'', the `countershock'' has not received ...