Patterns of household energy use and expenditure have been the subject of a large number of studies. Household expenditures on energy-particularly, how much the poor spend-have policy implications for several reasons. First, policies to mitigate or cope with energy price shocks are increasingly...

This paper examines the levels of and changes in vulnerability to oil price increases between 1996 and 2006 in 161 countries for which data are available. Vulnerability defined here as the ratio of the value of net oil imports to gross domestic product (GDP) rises if oil consumption increases...

The continued growth of global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their likely adverse effects on global warming are focusing debate on the contribution of various countries to total emissions and the comparability of efforts across countries in mitigating these emissions. This paper examines...

This paper presents retail prices of the petroleum products in August 2008 in up to 56 countries, and examines the degree of pass through to consumers of increases in world gasoline and diesel prices since January 2004 in 48 countries. This is the second paper in a series summarizing work...

Oil prices rose from 2004 to historic highs in mid-2008, only to fall precipitously in the last four months of 2008 and lose all the gains of the preceding four and a half years. The steep price increase from January 2007 to July 2008 was challenging for all economies. While the sharp drop in...

This regional study takes twelve oil-importing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and asks the following two questions: does each stage in the supply chain, from import of crude oil or refined products to retail, seem to be efficiently run and are the efficiency gains passed on to end-users? And if...