This situation suggests that there are factors at work, perhaps in both the US and euro-area economies, which have helped dampen the impact of this latest negative supply side shock. These factors include the following. First, there is a group of factors that might come under the general heading of structural changes in industrial economies.
Some analysts point out that industrial economies are less dependent on oil today than they were during the 1970s (see Figures 4-6). Output is now much less energy-intensive compared to previous decades and other sources of energy have reduced industrial countries’ dependence on oil9.