I HAVE been surprised by the recent coverage in the American press of gasoline prices and politics. Political pundits agree that presidential approval ratings are highly correlated with gas prices: when prices go up, a president's poll ratings go down. But, in view of America's long history of neglect of energy security and resilience, the notion that Barack Obama's administration is responsible for rising gas prices makes little sense.
Four decades have passed since the oil-price shocks of the 1970's. We learned a lot from that experience. The short-run impact as always occurs when oil prices rise quickly was to reduce growth by reducing consumption of other goods, because oil consumption does not adjust as quickly as that of other goods and services.