1973

First oil shock

During the Yom Kippur war, the Arab oil-producing countries embargoed sales to the United States and the Netherlands. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), formed in 1960, subsequently quadrupled oil prices.

This supply shock aggravated the already fragile eco-nomic environment in most industrialised countries (cf., in particular, the slowdown in productivity gains since the 60s and the international monetary system crisis that had been ongoing since 1971): following the crude-oil price hike, inflation surged, trade balances deteriorated, growth plummeted and unemployment increased.