Energy & Economics

Recently, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced in Vienna its most substantial production cuts in years. But as important as this rare demonstration of solidarity -- and the resultant hike in long slumping oil prices -- is what the meeting reveals about the emerging Saudi-Iranian cooperation and

On March 8, 1999, Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat delivered The Washington Institute's Third Les Aspin Memorial Lecture honoring the late chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, secretary of defense, and member of the Institute's Board of Advisors. The following is a rapporteur's summary of the forum's question-and-answer session

The United States devotes considerable effort -- more than $5 billion a year in aid, as well as many hours urging senior Arab and European officials to attend high-level meetings -- to promoting the twin goals of economic prosperity and economic cooperation among states and peoples in the Levant. U.S

The decline in world oil prices has hit Saudi Arabia hard. The benchmark Saudi crude, Arabian light, fell from $17 per barrel in 1997 to little more than $11 in 1998. Gross domestic product (GDP) declined in 1998 to about $125 billion. That translates into a per capita income of

On November 3, 1998, Patrick Clawson, director for research at The Washington Institute, and Zoe Danon Gedal, a Soref research fellow at the Institute, addressed the Institute's Special Policy Forum on the topic of their forthcoming book Dollars and Diplomacy: The Impact of U.S. Economic Initiatives on Arab-Israeli Negotiations. The

The issue of Caspian Sea oil is often entangled with many political considerations. In determining the actual importance of Caspian Sea oil, however, one needs to determine how much oil there is, how to extract the oil, and finally, how to get it to market. The answers to these question

Yasir Arafat received a standing ovation from the United Nations General Assembly last week when he reiterated Palestine's claim to statehood and eventual full UN membership. He had hoped to receive even more substantive backing when he asked the member-states of the Arab League to lend tangible support to the

The oil price downturn began in late 1996, but the very sharp fall started in mid-1997 and has persisted to the present. The average price of oil in 1997 was approximately $1.50 less per barrel than in 1996, and the average for 1998 may be as much as $3.00 to

The Council of Ministers from European Union (EU) governments is due to meet June 29 to discuss the recommendations of the EU Commission -- the Brussels bureaucracy -- to impose restrictions on trade with Israel. At stake is more than an arcane trade dispute. Because of this matter, Manuel Marin