The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts offers a starting point for compromise to revitalize the corporate income tax, fellows Jorge Barro and Joyce Beebe write in this issue brief.
In its primacy over trade matters under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has broad authority over new and existing trade agreements and could seek to block a "modernized" NAFTA that excludes Canada. Whether Congress has the political will or the votes to do so remains to be seen.
Corruption is a complex social, political and institutional problem that is difficult to define. This brief describes the challenges involved in defining, understanding and measuring corruption and evaluates the case study of Mexico, where corruption has increased in recent years, to illustrate these complexities.
The author explores consociational democracy as it has played out in Lebanon, and its possible use as a heuristic tool to rethink the relationship between communal groups, political organizations, and the state in the contemporary Middle East.
This paper proposes a new regulatory incentive mechanism to induce efficient investment in electricity transmission networks. Energy Economics: http://bit.ly/2PeCEpu
By Alanoud Al Sharekh, Ph.D., University of London
Kuwait’s economy has been stagnant over the past decade due to political instability, fluctuating oil prices, and endemic corruption. To combat this situation, Kuwait has attempted to develop a robust business sector through fundamental policy shifts away from monopolies and toward the creation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Alanoud Al Sharekh explores Kuwaiti SME development in an issue brief and a longer research paper, which are part of a series on pluralism and inclusion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring. The project is generously supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
GCC states have taken an active role in supporting entrepreneurship creation, as part of efforts to diversify and grow their economies. Yet while state-led entrepreneurship policies have worked to achieve many positive outcomes, they have also revealed some major shortcomings, such as reinforcing the political status quo and limiting the possibility of genuine change toward democratization.
M. Evren Tok explores these issues in both a short issue brief and longer research paper on pluralism and inclusion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring. The project is generously supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
By Peter Salisbury, Chatham House; Arab Gulf States Institute
This brief provides an overview of the evolution of aid and development resources by the GCC states over the past several decades and discusses the political context for their emergence as donor nations.
Peter Salisbury discusses the GCC in aid and development in both a short issue brief and longer research paper on pluralism and inclusion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring. The project is generously supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The current leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to assert much more political control over their respective country's religious institutions. The lesson both regimes seem to have taken away from the Arab upheavals is not the necessity of pluralism, but instead the need for more regimentation, hierarchy, control, and exclusion.
On April 3, 2018, Energy Dialogues and the Center for Energy Studies co-hosted an event in which representatives from academia, industry and NGOs discussed three important themes in the oil and gas industry: economy, environmental stewardship and coalition building. This report summarizes the day's events.