King Abdullah announced that Jordan will not renew the annex to the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty that created special governing areas in Naharayim and Zofar. Gilead Sher, the Brochstein Fellow in Middle East Peace and Security, and Mor Ben-Kalifa explore this decision and the conditions that led to it in The Institute for National Security Studies: https://bit.ly/2Pvag58
The role social media can play in the Middle East peace process is examined in this article through an assessment of social media peace campaigns in Israel and the Palestinian territories and an analysis of social media campaign design.
A series of converging trends provided political cover for reforms of long-standing energy subsidies launched by oil-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, but the new policies appear to be designed to update — rather than jettison — rent-based autocratic governance.
The authors conducted mobile phone surveys on energy supply, demand and quality in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, finding that current grid and off-grid electricity supply is inadequate to meet consumers' demands.
The United States appears less exposed to geopolitical risks affecting its oil supply than at any time since the early 1970s due to fracking, climate change and a more diverse energy supply, according to research by energy fellow Jim Krane and Kenneth B. Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies.
A combination of factors is encouraging Saudi Arabia to consider raising crude oil production capacity beyond the current ceiling of 12.5 million barrels per day. However, an increase in Saudi crude oil production would have consequences for markets and competing forms of energy, as well as for the kingdom's geopolitical stature, writes fellow Jim Krane in an article for Energy Policy.
Krane finds that the coal industry is at greater risk of being targeted by climate-related regulation amid decreasing social acceptance of its use, while the oil industry faces reduced risks due to its lack of substitutes.
The winner’s curse — overestimating the value of an asset and therefore overpaying — is often associated with acquisitions of publicly-traded firms but not with private acquisitions. Using an event study methodology for over 22,000 private acquisitions of U.S. firms between 1985 and 2015, the authors examine a possible winner’s curse for such acquisitions, testing variables to determine what characteristics make a private company more likely to overestimate the asset's value.
Jim Krane, fellow in energy studies, examines how reforms to subsidy programs and increases in gas and electricity prices could lower energy use in the GCC.
