Financial speculators frequently trade in the most liquid short-tenor contracts. Based on this insight, we study repeating patterns of sharply steepening slopes in the WTI forward curve to investigate whether, after controlling for macroeconomic variables, physical market fundamentals, and basic...

The ongoing democratic movements and civil wars in the Middle East have challenged the stability of regimes across the region. On the other hand, the commercial exploitation of large reserves of unconventional oil and gas in the United States is poised to significantly change the current...

How does the existence of an international institution change the strategic calculations of states engaged in an international dispute? This paper investigates the question by modeling an international institution as an alternative to bilateral bargaining for a dispute settlement. The...

Despite the development of an international market for crude petroleum and the resulting opportunities for arbitrage, Saudi oil continues to be shipped to markets in the U.S. and Europe when closer markets are available. Furthermore, these Western sales take place at fob (Saudi Arabia) prices...