Higher world oil prices in the past decade have caused serious economic disruptions in most developing countries, which as a group are highly dependent on imported oil in relation to both the sizes of their economies and their total imports. I Increased oil bills have frequently led to lower aggregate growth rates, more severe balance-of-payments and debt problems, disruptions in energy-using sectors, and domestic inflation. Whether or not world oil prices resume their upward spiral, the oil-importing developing countries will continue to face serious macro-economic adjustment problems related in one way or another to energy.
