In the aftermath of the oil crisis of the early 1970s, the relationship between oil prices and economic growth became a focal point of the scientific discourse and public debate. In 1983, James Hamilton published an influential article showing that an oil price increase had preceded all but one recession in the United States since the end of World II [1]. Since then, a large number of empirical studies have looked into the connection between oil prices and real economic growth and frequently found a significant negative correlation [2,3]. The importance of this link between oil price and economic growth was less clear after the second oil shock [4–۷]. Recent studies, with more refined statistical tools and price specifications, have restored the link between the oil price and economic growth [8–۱۲]. There is now a general consensus that this connection did not cease but has become more complex in terms of direction (anticyclical and procyclical), typology of shocks (demand or supply) and lag patterns [4,9,11,13,14]. This line of research tried to explain this tight relationship, given that the cost of energy is only a small part of GDP [13] but satisfactory explanations have remained elusive [2,4,13,15]. Interestingly, this research exploring the link between the oil price and economic indicators seems to have entirely ignored the transport sector, which is heavily reliant on refined crude oil products, and its role in shaping the global division of labor. In the post-war period, world trade grew at a faster pace than world GDP [16]. According to recent studies on globalization, the remarkably high rate was propelled by a dramatic decline in international transport costs [16–۱۹].