PDF superior Two essays on political economy of the oil industry

In the 1970s, National Oil Companies (NOCs) 8 controlled less than 10% of the world’s oil and gas reserves. Currently, they control more than 73% of known oil reserves and more than 60% of the commercial gas reserves 9 (Victor et al. (2012) and Leis et al. (2012)). During the last decade, NOCs produced three out of each five oil barrels consumed but they only earned one out of each three dollars of income generated by the oil industry. While International Oil Companies (IOCs) maximize grow and profits of shareholders, NOCs have additional objectives such as wealth re-distribution, economic development, domestic employment, subsidized domestic fuel price, energy security, royalties and dividends (Shleifer & Vishny, 1994; Hartley & Medlock, 2008; Eller, Hartley, & Medlock, 2011; Hartley & Medlock III, 2013).

This paper relates closely to several existing studies about the impact of the reform of the German citizenship law in 1999 and its different components on the affected foreign-citizen population in Germany. Recent research has shown that this reform substantially affected the behavior of targeted immigrant families in various outcomes. Avitabile et al. (2010) analyze the impact of a transition regulation in the new law that allowed parents of children born between 1990 and 1999 to apply for the German citizenship for their children throughout the year 2000 if the parents met the eligibility requirements for birthright citizenship at the time of birth. Comparing eligible families with last children born between 1990 and 1999 and control families whose last child was born in the 1980s, they find positive effects for the parents of these children on a number of outcomes related to social integration (German proficiency, reading German newspapers, and visiting or hosting German friends). Furthermore, Piracha and Zhu (2008) use a difference-in-difference approach comparing the affected immigrant population with the corresponding German natives to examine the joint effect of the different components of the reform on precautionary savings and remittance payments. Their results suggest that the law change led to a significant reduction in precautionary saving and remittance payments. Finally, in a companion paper to this (Sajons, 2010), I apply a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the effect of automatic birthright citizenship for the child on family return migration decisions. The results suggest that families with children born in the year after the enactment of the reform are more likely to remain in the host country than families with children born in the year before.

or decades until 2008, Pemex seemed impossible to reform. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the Mexican state-owned company in charge of all petrochemical activities in the country, started facing economic difficulties around three decades ago. In particular, the company struggled to maintain high levels of productivity; its production of oil started falling steeply from its peak in 2004; and oil reserves were being depleted. The stakes have been high for the Mexican people whose well-being is still linked to oil production. Although the Mexican industry has been able to diversify into producing many other goods and services, petroleum and its derivatives are still a fundamental part of the economy. Any decline in oil production can be expected to have a negative effect on growth and development. Furthermore, the government remains highly dependent on taxes levied on the oil industry, which still represent about one third of public revenue: for instance, in 2007, during the negotiations studied in this chapter, 32% of the Federal Government’s income came from royalties paid by Pemex. If production continued to decline at that pace, the government’s fiscal balance would be in imminent jeopardy. The stakes have been high for the global market as well. Among oil companies in the world, Pemex is the eleventh largest overall, and the fifth largest state-owned company. Thus an absence of Mexican oil could lead to increases in international prices. This would be particularly hurtful to American consumers since the Unites States relies on oil supplies from its southern neighbor, which is one of its three largest suppliers.

In this paper, we propose a theoretical exercise which combines elements from both, direct and representative democracy. Our simpli…ed model tries to resemble as much as possible the well-known Downsian model of political competition (Downs, 1957; Hotelling, 1929). We consider a unidimensional policy space in which voters endowed with single- peaked preferences are identi…ed with an ideal policy. A political party defends the principles of representative democracy (Party A) and another, defends assembly democ- racy (Party B). The degree of social protest against the traditional political party is introduced in the form of a valence characteristic. The two parties face each other at a general election that is solved by majority voting rule. Party A is a pure o¢ ce seeking political party that selects a platform as to defeat its counterpart. Party B cannot com- mit to certain platforms given that the party manifesto contains those proposals decided in a pre-electoral assembly. In the case of winning the elections, Party B will implement the platform decided in a post-electoral assembly. Both assemblies, the pre-electoral and the post-electoral, we consider, are open to all who wish to take part.

All OPEC countries have more or less binding financial constraints. Saudi Arabia ran current account deficits con- tinually between 1983 and 1995 and recorded minor gains over the past two years. Deficit financing and the high costs associated with the Gulf crisis com- pelled Saudi Arabia to draw heavily on its foreign reserves and start borrowing from local and international capital markets. As with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf war forced Kuwait to dip deeply into its foreign reserves and borrow to finance the balance of payments deficit. Even the United Arab Emirates, the only OPEC country with no current account deficit so far, should conserve its foreign reserves and not shy away irrationally from foreign borrowing, in the interest of sound macroeconomic management. In spite of much talk about political risk, OPEC oil, especially from the Gulf region, is still highly desired by the major consuming countries. One esti- mate is that investment of up to US$161 billion will be needed by the year 2010

Finally, chapter 3 tackles the configuration of the teams in terms of optimal level of diversification providing experimental evidence on the relationship between outcomes achieved and heterogeneity of the inputs, that is, players of the team. Generally speaking, there are two philosophies widely spread about the design of sports teams, especially basketball teams: all the players are ready and able to perform every task during the game or otherwise, there are as many specialists in the team as tasks which means that every member plays an accurate role. The objective in this part of the dissertation is to determine what is the most effective of them since it can be an underlying factor of success. The achievement of a reliable answer of this topic would provide configuration rules to the general managers. Once again this paper is divided in two parts. Firstly we focus on the assessment of the diversification level taking the Gollop and Monahan index (1991) as reference but adapted to the case of NBA teams. Its three components (number of players used, the distribution of the time played among players and the level of effort or responsibility of each player in every task) provide much more information with respect to sporting strategies.

hand, it studies the performance of several simple monetary policy rules, modi ed to comply with the zero oor, relative to the optimal policy. The analysis is carried out within a stochastic general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and Calvo (1983) staggered price setting, under a standard calibration to the postwar US economy. The main ndings are as follows: the optimal discretionary policy with zero oor involves a de ationary bias, which may be signi cant for certain parameter values and which implies that any quantitative analyses of discretionary biases of monetary policy that ignore the zero lower bound may be misleading. In addition, optimal discretionary policy implies much more aggressive cutting of the interest rate when the risk of de- ation is high, compared to the corresponding policy without zero oor. Such a policy helps mitigate the depressing effect of private sector expectations on current output and prices when the probability of falling into a liquidity trap is high. 2

5 The first essay discusses an early event that will shape the relationship between China and the West until our days: the Unequal Treaties that were signed after Great Britain defeated China in the First Opium War. The second essay looks at the interpretations that have been constructed by the Chinese, and the West, on the Boxer Rebellion. In the following one, two cultural movements Ȃ although with abysmal differences in their objectives, popular reach, and consequences- are studied in a comparative way, looking for some answers on the always intricate question of –Š‡ ”‘Ž‡ ‘ˆ ‹–‡ŽŽ‡…–—ƒŽ• ‹ ‘†‡” Š‹ƒ ƒ† –Š‡‹” ‹–‡”’”‡–ƒ–‹‘ ‘ˆ Š‹ƒǯ• ’ƒ•–Ǥ Lastly, one of the seminal events in Sino-U.S. relations, the rapprochement and subsequent restoration of diplomatic relations in the 1970s, is analyzed taking special focus in how Chinese and American governments and societies understand the event and how they use it in their current relations.

Our discussion of the last two points also weakens the force of Hymer’s belief in the merits of ‘central planning’. Even with global collusive oligopoly and uneven development, the case for central planning as a macro-institutional system should be at least partly based on its relative efficiency properties – which Hymer failed to discuss. In particular, he gave little attention to the ways in which governments might facilitate the positive externalities of inward FDI. One example is the promotion of ‘industrial districts’ and ‘clusters; As documented particularly by Porter (1990) agglomerations of inter-linked firms, including MNEs, that compete and cooperate in a particular activity in a particular location, are frequently a potent source of locally-based economic development. They are also an alternative mode of organizing production to ‘central planning’ that combines much of the efficiency of large and small size, but also exploits and sometimes adds to the social capital of host countries (Dunning, 2005; Pitelis, 2009).

The paper by Weingast, Shepsle and Johnsen (1981) has been associated with the effect of the number of parties on the policymaking process. Strictly speaking, they analyse the efficiency of the budget distribution among the districts of a federation in a legislature. They find that this distribution turns out to be more inefficient as the number of districts increases. Assuming a positive correlation between number of districts and number of parties, some scholars have claimed that the policymaking process becomes more complicated as the number of political parties increases. Our paper differentiates from this in at least two ways. First, we not only take into account legislative decisions on a private distribution but also on a public issue. Second, our analysis is not about efficiency. It cares on how both the number of parties and the level of polarization in a legislature affect the total utility of the government party and deviate it implemented policies from its initial ideological position.

The potential risks of creating the OMD ST in the form of a non-profit partnership are: limited financial support/guarantees from the authorities, low level of influence on strategic decision-making in the region (weak political will), as the public authority can not be the founder of a NPO. In this regard, the second version of the organizational and legal form is proposed: an autonomous non-profit organization, which allows obtaining financial support from the regional or municipal budget, in the case of its establishment by a public authority. In addition, citizens and other legal entities can become co-founders on the basis of voluntary property contributions (Dudetsky, 2014). The actors of the destination will be able to participate in the activities of the organization not only as co-founders, but also through joining the Board (the supreme collegial governing body), the Supervisory Board (coordination and advisory body), the Director General Office (executive body).

We analyze the feasibility of legal reforms to the Mexican oil industry. We do so by studying the politics of energy reform as they occur in Congressional negotiations. The main contribution of the paper is to offer an analytical framework based on the following elements: identifying the main issues regarding Pemex; identifying the main political agents in charge of reform; and locating the positions of these agents on those issues. Our analysis is aided by a series of original graphs that help us visualize the kind of coalitions that are conducive to change. We claim that three issues will tend to dominate the debate: private investment, labor accountability, and fiscal autonomy. The agents that we identify as being pivotal in creating a new legislation are: the Chief Executive; the three major parties, namely the PAN, the PRD, and the PRI; and the internal factions within each party. We use this framework to understand past reforms such as those of 2008, and to speculate about future reforms that might be attempted in the period 2012-2018.

We analytically characterize two Markov perfect equilibria: one myopic and another strategic. In the myopic equilibrium we derive a choice rule that is increasing in capital stock (if capital stock increases, decisive voters prefer more tax enforcement). The strategic equilibrium shows an implicit agreement among decisive voters, where the differentiable policy function is decreasing in capital stock in order to make the threat of the decisive voter credible. Therefore, for low values of capital stock, the path of tax enforcement defined by myopic equilibrium will be less than that which is defined by the strategic equilibrium. In the long term, we demonstrate that the chosen policy (level of tax enforcement) with strategic voting will be greater than the chosen policy (level of tax enforcement) in the myopic equilibrium. When we extend the model to include unequally distributed labor productivity, the Markov perfect equilibrium is unique and strategic and the decisive voter is the worker with the lowest labor productivity who demands a higher level of tax enforcement in the long term. Therefore, a political coalition forms between capitalists and the low-productivity worker. Improving the productivity of the least productive worker helps increase the capital stock of the economy but can worsen the effective collection of taxes on labor. We have identified some parameters affecting the dynamic of tax enforcement and we leave the task of confronting the model’s predictions to data to future research. For example, a reduction in taxes on capital negatively affects tax enforcement in the myopic equilibrium but has ambiguous results in the strategic equilibrium. In the myopic equilibrium, this result is due to the fact that the income-maximizing worker faces negative marginal income with respect to tax enforcement and therefore chooses to reduce enforcement. In the strategic equilibrium, the worker can change his original policy choice and reduce the threat to future generations, given the higher levels of expected income in the next period. Nonetheless, the reduction in tax collection (for transfers) may result in lower capital accumulation and therefore less future income for workers, whom should be enticed to prefer a lower level of enforcement.

In order to understand completely the political incentives that media outlets have to bias the coverage of local corruption cases, we must recall the a priori considerable potential impact of scandals on elections. As it has been mention in Chapter 2, the vast majority of studies that try to measure the efficiency of elections as an accountability tool have just found a modest effect of corruption on the candidate's vote share. For example, Ferraz and Finan’s (2008) study shows that the probability of re-election of Brazilian mayors involved in random federal audits fell by a 10%. Chong et al. (2012) find that information on corruption does not significantly affect a Mexican incumbent’s vote share. For Spain, Chapter 2 suggests that the mean vote loss after a corruption scandal is around 4%. These moderate impacts of corruption on vote shares imply that the risk of losing the mayoralty is just faced by incumbents who win the elections by a small margin. Consequently, the electoral power assigned to corruption news would be higher in those situations where the incumbent party win by a narrow electoral margin. This will make information on politicians’ dishonest behaviour more critical for those local governments that face a high electoral competition. Also, Solé-Ollé and Viladecans-Marsal (2012) show that in Spain lower political competition increases the amount of new land designated for development, interpreting this result as an indicator of the urban developers’ influence. That would suggest that thinner electoral margins of victory might imply fewer incentives for corruption.

The difference between this system with the previously enforced is that the patient used to pay only a (fixed) copayment of the price, irrespectively of the good purchased. For ob- vious reasons, we will use the Spanish way of implementing reference prices throughout this paper. Hence, this setting is implicitly assuming that the reference price is set below the price of the branded good, but equal or higher than the price of the generic drug. One of the main purposes of implementing reference prices is to try to achieve more intense price competition between branded and generic producers; Health Authorities hope that branded good producers actually reduce their prices. Pavcnik (2000) shows the effects of implementing reference prices in Germany empirically, and her results confirm that imple- menting such system affect the pricing decision of firms. The interested reader can find a more detailed explanation on the objectives of reference prices in Mestre-Ferrándiz (2001). There exist two opposing views with respect to the effects that such system will have on the R&D decision of pharmaceutical firms. On the one hand, it is argued that the introduction of this system will reduce profits which will lead to decreased revenues to finance the R&D costs necessary to develop new drugs. On the other, it is assumed that the R&D decision of these firms depend on total sales. Pharmaceutical enterprises are usually multiproduct firms, so even though sales for the drugs which are subject to reference prices might be reduced, total sales may not necessarily be so.

Now, the possibility that individuals exhibit group-loyal altruistic preferences, and the effect this has on the choice between centralized and decentralized redistribution, has also been investigated from a theoretical perspective. In his seminal work, Pauly (1973) shows that if redistribution is a spatially limited public good, it can be efficiently implemented at the local level. However, he does not address the issue of redistribution between regions, which clearly calls for some centralization. In Pauly’s model, a decentralized policy has the advantage of being closer to regional tastes regarding redistribution. In that sense, his result can be seen as an application of Oates’ decentralization theorem. In contrast, in our model, decentralization has the advantage of potentially increasing the degree of solidarity in the society, and hence redistribution. Another related work is the one of Bjorvatn and Cappelen (2006), where it is assumed that voters care about the poor only in their own community (i.e. there is full group loyalty), while decentralizing redistribution creates tax competition between jurisdictions, and hence a possible race-to-the-bottom. They show that the best level of government regarding redistribution is determined by a trade-off which depends on the nature of altruism (i.e. pure vs impure altruism). While Bjorvatn and Cappelen (2006) allow for tax competition under decentralization, they assume that jurisdictions are equally rich, and hence abstract from all issues related to interregional inequality.

Willingness to learn is also important. Perhaps this is related to the technological infrastructure on which the agro-industry is based. Some jobs may not require a high level of education, but they all require certain skills and particular ways of doing things. Added to that are the personal and socio-entrepreneurial requisites for as- sociative work, which gathers force from day to day, gradually im- posing a new organizational model of working within the sector. Education, training and the transfer of technological know-how, are at the heart of the activity of businesses involved in the palm industry. They provide the business with a competitive edge and the possibility of a fairer distribution of its benefits. Few agricul- tural or agro-industrial enterprises in the country promote the training of their personnel with such vigor as do those in the oil palm sector.

In a heightened competition for resources and legitimacy, universities will also need to prioritize and attend to specific missions and purposes. This is not the first time that strategy has been suggested, there is an esta- blished literature on the importance of distinctive missions (Clark, 1970). Yet with regard to state-centered research universities, there may be reason now to reconsider the further pursuit of prestige and legitimacy through high levels of funded research and increasingly selective admissions. Whi- le research, and the universities’ historic roles in leadership development need to be acknowledged and supported, attempting to rise in prestige hierarchies as presently constituted isn’t a project that is likely to prove successful for very many institutions. At the same time, it may compromi- se other elements of these universities’ fundamental missions, particularly those traditionally associated with public benefits (Pusser & Marginson, 2012). While the declining position of state-centered institutions in prestige rankings comes as a disappointment to many key constituents, it also offers an opportunity to more deeply commit institutional contributions to the public good, research in the public interest, student access, affordability, community service and engagement. These qualities may ultimately prove to generate more legitimacy and resources than does moving up in prestige rankings or creating further market alliances.

In our research feed intake (DMI), body condition score (BCS) and body weight was not affected by dietary treatments, which agrees with other studies focused in vegetal lipids supplementation (Altenhofer et al., 2014; Chamberlain and DePeters, 2017; Bougouin et al., 2018). The possible explanation of this result could be related to the proposed by Bayat et al. (2017), who indicated that fatty acid carbon length rather than the degree of unsaturation has a negative effect in DMI. Moreover, high levels of dietary oil supplements (≥50 g of oil/kg of DM) are typically associated with lower DMI, and the lipid inclusion in this study was only 30 g/kg DM of pail oil and olive oil in each treatment. Furthermore, Rabiee et al. (2012), found that a longer period of feeding fat resulted in a higher DMI. Finally, consequences of fat in DMI has been attributed to the adverse effects of unsaturated lipids on ruminal microbial communities, and therefore lower fiber digestion (Weld and Armentano, 2017).

After a literature review and analyzing which topics could be useful for diagnosing the current situation of informal entrepreneurs I chose three topics: 1 the logics that motívate them [r]