Now, they aren't so sure. But there is one cloud in the blue sky. Oil-importing developing countries would be hit particularly hard. Even that would be painful, but things could get worse. Economic forecasting models widely used in business and government may understate the effect of a sudden, sharp increase in oil prices.
Intangibles play a big role.
The price of oil is an important psychological factor for confidence in the economy, as recent fuel-price protests in Europe demonstrated. This is putting pressure on the ECB to keep raising interest rates at a moment when European growth already may be peaking. In the long term, the shock could prompt countries to renew their efforts to wean themselves further off oil. But short-term options are few. But mostly they are relying on rhetoric.