One of the main elements of economic sanctions against Iran due to its nuclear and military programs is crude oil exportation restrictions in addition to investment in Iranian energy related projects. Senders of such sanction are interested in understanding the impacts of such embargos on...

Production sharing contracts (PSCs) and buyback contracts are two important contract modes in the upstream oil industry. In this paper, we build a theoretical model to compare investment and production levels under these two contracts. Our model results show that PSCs lead to higher investment...

Oil revenues play an important role in the political economy of Iran. On average, 60% of the Iranian government revenues and 90% of export revenues originate from oil and gas resources. Current international sanctions on Iran have mainly targeted the oil production capacity of Iran and its...

This paper studies the target pricing zone (TPZ) hypothesis for crude oil by examining price clustering in the dollar digit. It is hypothesized that price clustering occurs within an established TPZ if OPEC is able to defend the upper and lower bounds through output changes. The results show...

In June 2006, Russian federal law legalized the exclusive right of Gazprom to export natural gas to Europe, and thus thwarted efforts by the European Union to bring competition to the Russian gas industry. An understanding of the motivation of the Russian government to support this export...

The POLES energy model has been used to assess Asia's role in combating climate change and the benefits it stands to gain. This paper focuses on the role of major Asian economies in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the benefits to their economies from reduced energy...

China's resource tax reform, beginning with Xinjiang as a pilot area in June 2010, marked a new stage in the progression of China's resource tax system. Based on the 2007 social accounting matrix (SAM) for Xinjiang, constructed by ourselves, this paper takes a regional perspective on China's...

We present a simple model of petroleum exploration and development that can be applied to study the performance of alternative tax systems and identify potential distortions. Although the model is highly simplified, it incorporates many factors and some of the key tradeoffs that would influence...

In this paper, we estimate the demand for road diesel in Canada using aggregate annual data for the period 1986–2008. Using a partial adjustment model (PAM), we find short and long run price elasticities of −0.43 and −0.8 respectively. However, using cointegration techniques, we obtain...

By reducing the demand for fossil fuels, climate policy can reduce scarcity rents for fossil resource owners. As mitigation policies ultimately aim to limit emissions, a new scarcity for “space” in the atmosphere to deposit emissions is created. The associated scarcity rent, or climate rent...