Yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds have risen significantly above their June levels of below 0.5 percent. Long-term interest rates reflect market participants' prospects of the economy. Thus, higher long-term interest rates after June are basically the reflection of improved prospects. Such observation can be reinforced by the simultaneous rise in long-term interest rates and stock prices.
A further surge in oil prices accompanied the Iranian Revolution in 1979. 2  BIS Review 37/2005  The higher prices of the 1970s brought to an abrupt end the extraordinary period of growth in U.S. consumption of oil and the increased intensity of its use that was so evident in the decades immediately following World War II.