A number of countries have recently discovered and are developing oil and gas reserves. Policy makers in such countries are anxious to obtain the greatest benefits for their economies from the extraction of these exhaustible resources by designing appropriate policies to achieve desired goals....

We review the issues involved in designing a mechanism for allocating resource rights. We focus on the case of exploration and development rights for oil and gas leases in U.S. federal lands to highlight the tradeoffs at play. The main issues concern the design of the lease contract, the design...

The United States experienced a considerable increase in oil and natural gas extraction in recent years due to technological advancements including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Increased energy development likely creates both benefits and costs, but the net effects for local...