Publications

High oil prices are again transforming oil-exporting economies. Economies that were moribund when oil hovered in the $20s for most of the 1990s—and at risk of bankruptcy when oil dipped to $10 a barrel in 1998—are now booming. A new generation of skyscrapers is rising in the Gulf, in St. Petersburg, and in Moscow. Government coffers in oil-exporting economies are overflowing with the governments’ (typically very large) cut from the oil windfall. Most oil-exporting economies now need an oil price of $40 a barrel to cover their import bill, including their bill for imported labor—up from $20 a barrel a few years ago. But with oil trading above $90 a barrel, they still have substantial sums available to invest in the rest of the world.