Research Library

Today’s oil market contains not one, but two prisoner’s dilemmas: traditional OPEC+ members, policed by Saudi Arabia, and a new dilemma with U.S. shale producers, policed by their investors. This boosts the prize for cooperative behavior but also raises new risks. Energy fellow Mark Finley explains.

Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar and University Professor Moshe Vardi analyzes three recent crises — the 2021 winter storm in Texas, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Boeing 737 Max software failure — that highlight the cost of valuing efficiency over resilience and provide lessons for bringing society into balance.

Texans served by regulated electricity markets, especially by electric cooperatives, were much more satisfied with their providers’ performance during Winter Storm Uri than those in deregulated markets. In this post for the Baker Institute Blog, the authors offer possible explanations for the contrast in favorability.

Despite the demand for policies that mitigate the impact of severe weather, a majority of Texans seem opposed to one that requires consumers to pay for reserve electrical generation capacity.

Electricity is the new oil when it comes to energy security, writes Mark Finley, fellow in energy and global oil. The immediacy of power outages and the ubiquity of critical elements of modern life powered by electricity mean the impact of oil supply disruptions are a walk in the park compared to our power vulnerabilities.

U.S. oil refiners have had a great run this century. But market events in 2020 signal changes to come that will challenge the industry’s global competitiveness, writes fellow in energy and global oil Mark Finley.

Scenes of insurrectionists rummaging through offices and computers in the Capitol highlight the urgent need for Congress to up its IT security game. The authors recommend steps to adopt modern IT management and cybersecurity processes that are already used throughout the federal government.

Energy fellows Mark Finley and Anna Mikulska explore why U.S. natural gas prices have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, even as gas prices in Europe and Asia have remained relatively low.

Energy fellow Mark Finley assesses the future of international oil companies given the tremendous pressure they've experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Using a football analogy, he suggests that although business leaders are rightly focused on winning the game, they can’t ignore the condition of the playing field.

University Professor Moshe Vardi condemns the actions taken by the U.S. government to restrict the immigration of technical workers into the country but also questions why the U.S. has become so dependent on international students as the major workforce for its academic science and engineering research enterprise. Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/3llmHg2