Presented in TIME Magazine under the title , the controversial Officer-Hayes Hypothesis claims that oil producers have artificially boosted prices by speculating in the oil futures market. It relies on the fact that the futures market is smaller than the physical oil market, so it is in an oil supplier's interest to boost prices in the smaller, price-setting market.
In light of the realization that one firm did, in fact, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003898.html?hpid=topnews control 11% of the oil futures market], Officer-Hayes has proved plausible.
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