Most previous work on economic sanctions has dealt with broad sanctions, not limited just to oil. Kaempfer and Lowenberg (1988) pose sanctions as an issue in public choice featuring competing interest groups both in the sanctioning and sanctioned countries. Leidy (1989) expands upon the discussion, raising further factors that may influence sanctions policies. At a more applied level, the Institute for International Economics (IIE) published a study of U.S. sanctions which concluded that in recent decades they have achieved their goals less than 20 percent of the time (1990). More recently the IIE released an analysis of the impact of U.S sanctions on U.S. exports, concluding that in 1995 such sanctions reduced exports to the sanctioned markets by an estimated $15-19 billion (1997). Also recently, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) released a study which totaled the number of times the U.S. had employed unilateral economic sanctions between 1993 and 1996 (1997). Finally, the federal government released a report which surveys recent unilateral U.S. sanctions, describes their economic impacts, and suggests means to improve the process under which they are considered (The President's Export Council (1997)).
With regard to U.S. oil sanctions, the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation (PIRINC) offered a number of analyses (1997, 1997, 1996, 1996, 1995). These have assessed the consequences for oil markets in the light of then current conditions and the types of sanctions under consideration. PIRINC's analyses generally have concluded that unilateral U.S. oil sanctions have relatively little effect on oil markets, while multilateral sanctions can be effective in preventing the targeted country from exporting but this can raise oil prices considerably if imposed when the supply/demand balance already is tight.