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  3. Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil

Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil

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问题     Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979—1980, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time?
    The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term.
    Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.
    Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, if oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25%—0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed.
    One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist’s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.
The estimates in Economic Outlook show that in rich countries ______.
选项 A、heavy industry becomes more energy-intensive
B、income loss mainly results from fluctuating crude oil prices
C、manufacturing industry has been seriously squeezed
D、oil price changes have no significant impact on GDP
答案D
解析 本题可参照文章的第4段。从中可知，富裕国家也不像过去那样依赖石油，所以对油价的波动也不那么敏感了。节约能源、转用其他燃料以及重工业、能源密集型产业重要性的下降，这些都减少了石油的消费。富裕国家消耗的石油比1973年减少将近50％；在最新的《经济展望》中，经合组织估计，如果全年的油价平均为每桶22美元的话，那么同1998年的每桶13美元相比，富裕国家进口石油的费用就会增加，仅仅占国内生产总值的0.25％～0.5％。这个比率不到1974年或1980年收入损失的1／4。另一方面，那些进口石油的新兴国家——重工业已转至这些国家——变得更加能源密集化，所以可能遭受更严重的打击。据此可知，当前的油价波动对富裕国家的影响没有过去那样大了。D项与文章的意思相符，因此D项为正确答案。
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