The Eastern Mediterranean region is rapidly changing. The turbolent political transition in Egypt after the Arab Spring, the civil war in Syria, the emergence of Turkey as leading regional power, the tensions between Israel and Gaza and the never-ending dispute between Turkey and the Republic of...

The Chinese leadership in November 2013 determined to embark upon a new wave of comprehensive reforms in China. This is clearly reflected by the key decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of Communist Party of China to assign the market a decisive role in allocating...

The geographical distribution of African natural gas resources is going through a period of profound change as new gas discoveries in East Africa emerge to reshape the continent's energy landscape. This region is rapidly establishing itself as a world-class natural gas province and two countries...

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into...

Natural resources are generally associated to negative effects on the political environment of a country. This paper explores the impact that oil revenues have on the establishment of a given political system. Based on previous literature, a political economy perspective is employed. A simple...

This study proposes a new mechanism for the resource curse: crowding-out of innovation due to the existence of an option to engage in conflict. Using a game theoretical framework, it is argued that an increase in the amount of natural resources (in the informal sector here conflict for a...

The paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ‘virtual trade’ in...

A government bargains a mutually convenient agreement with a multinational corporation to extract a natural resource. The corporation bears the initial investment and earns as a return a share on the profits. The host country provides access and guarantee conditions of operation. Being the...

We develop a continuous time dynamic game to provide with a benchmark theory of Arab Spring-type events. We consider a resource-dependent economy with two interacting groups, the elite vs. the citizens, and two political regimes, dictatorship vs. a freer regime. Transition to the freer regime...

This paper investigates the connection between resource abundance and innovation, as a transmission mechanism that can elucidate part of the resource curse hypothesis; i.e. the observed negative impact of resource wealth on income growth. We develop a variation of the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model...