If we take 1972:Q4, in which inflation was 3.4 percent, as the starting point, the increase in inflation to the 1974 peak was 8 percentage points. 5  See, for example, Blanchard and Gali (2007) and the references therein.
6  In 1975, roughly 17,000 Btu of energy were required, on average, to produce a dollar's worth of output, with output being measured in chained (2000) dollars. In 2007 the corresponding figure was 8,800 Btu (see Table 1.7, "Energy Consumption per Real Dollar of Gross Domestic Product," in Energy Information Administration, 2008b).