Over the years, the East-West Center (EWC) has developed considerable expertise in refinery modeling, especially in the area of forecasting product balances for countries, given planned capacity changes, changes in product demand, changes in crude slates, and changes in product specifications....

During the last decade, the Venezuelan government has pursued a reform of the legal regime of hydrocarbons tailored to its interests as an oil producing country. However, the ongoing consequences of the global economic recession which negatively impacted the Venezuelan economy, call into...

Econometric Modeling has a wide range if applications, including economy-wide representations. This study takes on the task of finding a suitable structure to model the Venezuelan economy. It is revealed that econometric structural and computable general equilibrium models are inapplicable,...

Nationalization is a particular type of organizational structure where the state or nation controlsthe industry as opposed to private companies or multinational organizations. If one imagines acontinuum of organizational structure, nationalization and privatization would be at oppositeends....

The first essay proposes to test the Grossman and Helpman "Protection for Sale" model using data from the U.S. food processing industries at the 4-digit level. The Grossman and Helpman model departs from previous frameworks of trade protection in that it provides micro-foundations to the...

This research offers an empirical analysis of the economic effects on Morocco from implementing a Free Trade Area (FTA) with the European Union (EU) signed in 1996. Since the FTA translates largely into unilateral discriminatory tariff elimination against EU imports, there are concerns about the...

This dissertation explores the influences of minimum quality standards and of the threat of entry in a vertical product differentiation model. In the first chapter, I study the influence of minimum quality standards in a partial-equilibrium model of vertical product differentiation and trade in...

The study used a modified version of an applied general equilibrium model and database, GTAP, to generate comparative static projections about the future patterns of production, consumption, trade and agricultural protection, focusing on the SEA-4 countries. Exogenous regional macroeconomic...