International Energy Cooperation: The Mismatch Between IEA Policy Actions and Policy Goals: (Final Report)

摘要

This analysis discusses the link, if any, between IEA policy actions and stated goals of the Program. Understanding the reasons for success or failure of IEA actions identifies which policies achieve real gains from international energy cooperation, and which are counterproductive. Section I is an overview of the structural framework of the IEA. Section II describes the institutional and organizational background, including the policy mechanisms, of the IEA. Section III looks at specific policy actions undertaken by the agency, particularly during the Iranian revolution and at the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. The economic consequences of oil sharing are examined in section IV, which simulates a world oil supply disruption affecting IEA member countries differentially. Section V analyzes import controls, focusing on coordination problems and possible OPEC pricing responses, and examines the actual record of general petroleum consumption restraints in 1980. Oil stockpiling is analyzed both as a general economic phenomenon and an object of IEA coordination in section VI, which also offers an econometric analysis of actual experience in the 1970s and 1980s. Section VII considers a number of less formal assessments of IEA policies, including self-evaluations by the IEA itself. (ERA citation 12:024910)