R. B. Barsky

1. Introduction Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan’s (2014) analysis of high oil prices is an early analysis of the fluctuation of global commodity prices, because oil prices are a major part of global commodity prices. They identify that oil prices have often risen sharply even when the production or inventory capacity of oil is high and argue that the reasons for the sharp increases have been found in growing conflicts in the Middle East and beyond.