In The News

Money Trumps Fear: Reactions to Nuclear Accord With Iran

Jamsheed K. Choksy and Carol E.B. Choksy July 22, 2015
Iran has the world’ fourth-largest oil reserves and second-largest gas reserves. Once sanctions are lifted, the population of 77 million will provide a large, eager market. The economy, with a strong manufacturing sector and educated workforce, is diversified, explain Jamsheed Choksy and Carol Choksy in the Conversation, and as a result, “potential economic gains are prevailing over military,...

High Costs of Cheap Oil

Deepak Gopinath May 7, 2015
Consumers are delighted by low oil prices and economists anticipate increased global growth. But the low prices are locking many industries into infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels. “High-carbon infrastructure – power plants, pipelines, factories, inefficient buildings, roads and transport vehicles – built now will last and pollute for decades to come,” writes Deepak Gopinath, a writer and...

High Debt and Low Oil Prices Threaten Canada’s Globalized Economy

Vikram Mansharamani April 20, 2015
The world’s 11th largest economy does not rank among the world’s 30 most populous countries. Despite handily managing the global debt crisis after 2007, Canada’s economy is vulnerable. Volatility brought by globalization and interdependency may bear part of the blame, explains Vikram Mansharamani, a Yale lecturer and senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the...

Yemen Conflict Devolves Into Proxy War

Akim Alma Smari, Rory Jones, and Asa Fitch March 27, 2015
“The conflict in Yemen is quickly devolving into a wider regional conflagration, pitting Shiite Iran and an allied militant group against Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states that came together to launch airstrikes on those militants,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Saudi Arabia is bombing the Shiite-linked minority Houthis in Yemen, a country with 65 percent Sunni and 35 percent Shia. “...

The Curse of Chávez’s Ghost

María Elena Candia March 27, 2015
In the wake of the abrupt drop in global oil prices, Venezuelans have experienced a shortage of food, paper goods and medicines. The Maduro administration makes no effort on economic reforms and instead blames the United States for its heavy dependence on oil revenues and other economic troubles. “There is still no commitment from the government to hike the cost of gasoline, which is heavily...

Oil Price Fall Leaves Gulf States With Difficult Reform Choices

Simeon Kerr February 4, 2015
Subsidies distort markets, and because consumers take the low prices for granted, governments struggle to restore fair-market prices. States that rely heavily on oil revenues struggle over whether to dip into reserves to continue subsidies or enact unwelcome reforms. Stability for many oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf hinges on oil revenues. The price of oil has fallen by half since summer...

Economic Interests Attract China to Russia

Wang Yiwei February 3, 2015
With its invasion of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine, Russia invited condemnation and sanctions from the West and had little choice but to tighten ties with China. Stronger Sino-Russian relations prompt some analysts to compare China and Russia. “China should take such questions and comparisons seriously – making it clear through public diplomacy that the country is not like Russia,”...