For a considerable part of its history, the American economy has functioned as a cowboy economy. It has been a cowboy economy in the sense that there have been no important resource constraints on growth. This is not to say that land, minerals, and a clean environment have been freely available. Rather, agricultural land could be obtained at roughly constant costs; most essential minerals have been present at fairly high grade in considerable abundance; and the environment could be used as a sink without becoming fouled. In the last several decades, however, cropland has stayed almost constant. Some high grade mineral deposits have been exhausted, and the carrying capacity of our environment has been strained. The scarcity of resources has led many to argue that the operating rules of our economy must change. Whereas in the cowboy economy we could afford to use our resources profligately, the new view of economic growth is that the closing of all our frontiers means that we are now operating in a spaceship economy. In a spaceship economy, great attention must be paid to the sources of life and to the dumps where our refuse is piled. Things which have traditionally been treated as free goods-air, water, quiet, natural beauty-must now be treated with the same care as other scarce goods. It would seem difficult to question the observation that the world economy is progressing toward a closed system. Many have carried this observation further, describing a future imperiled by famine, depleted of essential materials, running out of energy, or choking in its own exhaust fumes. Behind these pessimistic visions is a deeper skepticism about the very fruits of economic growth. Economists have for the most part ridiculed the new view of growth, arguing that it is merely Chicken Little Run Wild. I think that the new view of growth must be taken seriously and analyzed carefully. What have we learned about the new view? The first set of studies relates to theoretical investigations. (By theoretical I mean propositions based on largely untested assumptions about model structure -perhaps hypothetical would be a more accurate term.) In this category belong the celebrated writings sponsored by the Club of Rome as well as many offshoots of this work (Jay Forrester, Dennis H. Meadows et al.). These works have demonstrated that, under certain conditions involving technology, population, and resource availability, a sustained growth path for consumption is not possible. The conclusions of these works have not generally been accepted by economists because of the dubious nature of many of their assumptions. In particular, the assumptions regarding population growth and technology are quite unsatisfactory. Several authors have shown that the conclusions of these models are not robust to minor modifications in structure. Thus R. Boyd showed that introducing a new factor called "technology" would drastically alter the model's path. My work (1973a) showed that any of three changes in model structure-ongoing technological progress, adequate factor substitution or population decline-would lead to opposite and more optimistic results. It should be stressed, however, that all * Yale University.

Resources as a Constraint on Growth

This paper presents a short-term monthly forecasting model of West Texas Intermediate crude oil spot price using OECD petroleum inventory levels. Theoretically, petroleum inventory levels are a measure of the balance, or imbalance, between petroleum production and demand, and thus provide a good market barometer of crude oil price change. Based on an understanding of petroleum market fundamentals and observed market behavior during the post-Gulf War period, the model was developed with the objectives of being both simple and practical, with required data readily available. As a result, the model is useful to industry and government decision-makers in forecasting price and investigating the impacts of changes on price, should inventories, production, imports, or demand change.

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Forecasting crude oil spot price using OECD petroleum inventory levels

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/22987.pdf

Oil in parallax: Scarcity, markets, and the financialization of accumulation

Price dynamics in refined petroleum spot and futures markets

Taking up Janet Roitman’s charge to think critically about the epistemology of crises, this dissertation is an interdisciplinary cultural history of the 1970s “energy crisis” in the United States. It asks how a crisis of energy came to be, how different experts and interests interpreted its meaning, and how it has shaped US political culture. My central claim is that the energy crisis fostered neoliberalism in the United States by cultivating speculative discourses about energy futures that ultimately supported free market trade and energy policies by the early 1980s. Indeed, the energy crisis itself was always largely speculative, concerned with the possibility of greater scarcity in the future, and it generated competing visions of the future that ultimately moved the country further to the economic right. But this story is not just about the market. It is also about the ecological critiques of carbon capitalism that the energy crisis inspired and the ways in which they both challenged and overlapped with neoliberal formations.

Energizing the Right: Economy, Ecology, and Culture in the 1970s US Energy Crisis

Preface The Setting An Overview of Present Trading Practices Petroleum Spot Markets Mechanics of Spot Trading Spot-Related Deals The Role of Petroleum Spot Prices Futures Markets The Mechanics of Futures Trading Evolution of Futures Markets The Rules of the Game Petroleum Options Trading The Market Interlinkages The Impact of Futures Trading on Petroleum Stock Movements Interactions Between Future Prices and the Spot Market Price Predicting Futures Prices: Science versus Art OPEC, Spot, and Futures Trading: A New Market Triangle Appendixe Tables Bibliography Index

Fundamentals of petroleum trading

Oil and gas financing by the World Bank

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/43301.pdf

Hossein Razavi

Papers

Fundamentals of petroleum trading

Oil and gas financing by the World Bank

A practical approach to oil wealth management: Application to the case of Kazakhstan

OPEC's push into refining. Dilemma of interactions between crude and product markets

Coordinated strategy for separate power systems: The case of Malaysia