Recently, dollar prices for crude oil reached an all-time high. Similarly high prices were seen for the fi rst time at the end of the 1970s in the wake of the second oil price crisis, and once again on a number of days in 1990 following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. However, the current record prices do not seem quite so extreme when compared over a´long period of time and taking other price developments into account. Calculated in real terms, using export prices for industrial goods as a defl ator, oil cost well over 50 dollars a barrel in the early 1980s. Applying the commonly used US infl ation rate as a defl ator, prices were even higher in the past.
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