This book examines the economic institutions through which oil is produced, traded, and consumed, and their interactions with national and international economic systems. The oil market occupies a central role in the international economy, and in the economies of many producing and consuming countries. It is impossible to understand the economic forces driving this market without grasping how it relates to the world's economic and financial systems. The authors approach their subject by developing and blending two schools with economic theory--the analysis of markets for oil and other exhaustible resources as asset markets, and the use of general equilibrium models to study both trade between industrial and developing countries and the macroeconomic impact of commodity price movements.