Research Library

The author highlights the historical evolution, outcomes and implications of some of Japan’s most important investments in the energy sectors of resource-rich countries in the Middle East. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

Energy fellow Gabriel Collins investigates how some operators in the Permian Basin are unifying their efforts to solve the unique set of community and infrastructure challenges in the region This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

Michelle Michot Foss, fellow in energy and minerals, suggests that host governments are often not well positioned to implement market-based reforms and “liberalization.” This is problematic because foreign aid is subject to home country fiscal and political cycles. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

Indigenous natural resource wealth can provide a basis for robust economic development and broad macroeconomic development, especially when there is appropriate governance and robust legal and regulatory institutions. But a lack of institutional fortitude in many regions around the world has contributed to failure to translate resource wealth into broader macroeconomic wealth.

If the country is to be economically successful and democratically viable, it would require learning from past mistakes and developing its significant potential in other economic sectors, writes energy policy fellow Francisco J. Monaldi. Forbes blog: http://bit.ly/2R80KU3.

A newly released study from the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University includes a contribution from fellow Jim Krane on subsidy reform and tax increases in the Middle East.

Cultural myths — and by extension, the suppositions they inspire — have played a major role in shaping Venezuela's relationship with and management of oil resources throughout much of the last 100 years, writes nonresident fellow Luis Pacheco. To achieve sustainable economic and social development, Venezuela must move beyond such beliefs and establish a new approach that is more attuned to current times.

This brief explores how a quirk in the measurement of women’s labor force participation and the demographic peculiarities of the Persian Gulf have resulted in the significant undercounting of female citizen labor in the Gulf Cooperation Council. I

As Congress resumes work this spring on a bill granting Trade Promotion Authority to President Obama for completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, many members have sought inclusion of a chapter on currency manipulation. Currency manipulation is a legitimate concern. However, countermeasures require clear, objective identification of currency manipulation. Both the IMF and the U.S. Treasury Department have mandates to identify currency manipulation, yet neither has done so in the past 20 years. If it can be done, why has it not happened more often? In this issue brief, Russell Green, Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics, reviews the difficulties of operationalizing a currency manipulation chapter and argues that the difficulty of identifying currency manipulation suggests serious political obstacles to implementation.