The empirical literature on economic growth and development has moved from the study of proximate determinants to the analysis of ever deeper, more fundamental factors, rooted in long-term history. A growing body of new empirical work focuses on the measurement and estimation of the effects of...

This article contributes to the debate about the impact of the U.S. fracking boom on U.S. oil imports, on Arab oil exports, and on the global price of crude oil. First, I investigate the extent to which this oil boom has caused Arab oil exports to the United States to decline since late 2008....

The Arab Spring has led to very different outcomes across the Arab world. I present a highly stylized model of the Arab Spring to better understand these differences. In this model, dictators from the ethnic or religious majority group concede power if their country is oil-poor, but can stay in...

This paper uses the unique social structure of Arab communities to examine the effect of social identity on voter turnout. We first show that voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their social group (signified by last name) as compared to other candidates. Using last name as...

Using a novel dataset, we develop a structural model of the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) market between the Arabian Gulf and the Far East. We study how fluctuations in oil tanker rates, oil exports, shipowner profits, and bunker fuel prices are determined by shocks to the supply and demand...

This paper examines the statistical properties of energy consumption in the GCC countries applying fractional integration methods to annual data from 1980 to 2014. The results indicate that both the raw and the logged series exhibit a (statistically significant) linear time trend in the case of...

This note investigates the effects of the recent political tensions in the Arabian peninsula on the linkages between the stock markets of the leading GCC countries by estimating a VAR-GARCH (1,1) model at a weekly frequency. The results indicate that the June 2017 crisis lowered stock market...