Economists are surprisingly sanguine about the impact of higher oil prices - but only in the short term, writes William Keegan in the Guardian

All conversations at the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington last weekend led to the subject of oil - and many of those conversations had started there. Whether ministers, officials, bankers and other observers were speaking on or off the record, the big issue was how the higher oil price would affect the world economy in the short and longer terms...

...The problem worrying officials at the highest level is the gap between known oil resources in the ground (or under the sea) and the rate of extraction. Given the obvious time lags between investment in new extraction facilities and delivery to those great tankers, a serious gap in supply can be envisaged over the next five years.

Guardian