Despite wallet-shrinking prices at gas
stations nationwide, history suggests the current record
price per gallon is not unusually high when adjusted for
inflation.
?The high point was 1981, then it dropped down,? said
William S. Peirce, a professor at the Weatherhead
School of Management, part of Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland.
According to government figures and those of the
American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, the last two
years have brought the cheapest gasoline on record ?
after inflation. Gas in 1981 was priciest, at an equivalent
of $2.47 in today?s dollars......
... The API?s calculation of Energy Department figures
using the government?s Consumer Price Index shows the
February average of $1.44 per gallon is just a penny
higher than the real-dollar equivalent of what drivers paid
in 1972, when gas sold nominally for 36 cents.
Edward Sattler, a professor of economics at Bradley
University in Peoria, Ill., said that Americans who began
buying efficient foreign cars in droves during the 1970s
and 1980s have done the opposite recently, with
inexpensive gas in 1998 and 1999 fueling a national
armada of thirsty sport-utility vehicles
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