OIL AND THE WORLD ECONOMY: SOME POSSIBLE FUTURES

"Sorrell and others (2010) discuss several studies which conclude that world oil production is currently on a temporary and fluctuating plateau, and which forecast future decline ...  [In the 'Larger Shock Scenario',] we also assume that this outright output contraction is accompanied by an annual increase in real extraction costs per barrel of 4 percent ... Annual GDP growth rates in the United States and the euro area drop by around one percentage point ... Current account deteriorations in oil importers are also much more serious, averaging 5 percentage points of GDP on average in the long term in both the United States and the euro area. The most striking aspect of this scenario is however that supply reductions of this magnitude would require a more than 200 percent increase of the oil price on impact, and an 800 percent increase over 20 years. Relative price changes of this magnitude would be unprecedented, and would almost certainly have nonlinear effects on GDP that the model is not able to capture adequately."

Ein IMF Working Paper von Michael Kumhof und  Dirk Muir über verschiedene Zukunftsszenarien der Ölverknappung und dessen Auswirkungen auf die wirtschaftliche Konjunktur. Erschienen beim Internationalen Währungsfonds (Oktober 2012).