Coal has for many years been considered as a resource of the past and as a result its importance has been underestimated. Yet coal still is the main pillar for generating electricity in most countries: A quarter of the worldwide primary energy consumption is provided by coal. While the world's...

The relations between Russia and the EU with respect to energy and climate policies have been characterized in recent months by two phenomena. On the one hand, the EU has to deal with questions regarding the security of energy supply. The Russian government's high-handed treatment of domestic...

In spite of the sharp decline of crude oil prices since the fall of 2008, the current price level of approximately $65 per barrel is significantly higher than the long-term average. The market power of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is partially responsible for...

Yearly revenues from transnational criminal activity account for USD 1 to 1.6 trillion, and a wide variety of methods is employed to transfer those revenues across borders and launder it. The specific type of crime largely determines the choice of methods. Terrorists, for example, use both...

The terrorist threat has increased in importance over the last decade and Western governments have implemented a multitude of measures to address it. Their numbers and the significant financial cost they involve have, however, not been matched with an adequate evaluation of effectiveness. We can...

In this Policy Briefing, we review the available terrorism databases by focusing on their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. This serves as a guide for policymakers and academic researchers alike. The rapid and accelerating development of security economics has generated great demand...

In this Policy Briefing we look at authorities' relative counterterrorism effectiveness focusing on its behavior over time, its impact on preventing casualties and property losses. The study underlying this Policy Briefing used data on transnational terrorism from the ITERATE database...

International policy standards in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing are set forth by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations on Anti-money laundering (AML)/Combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) policies. While those standards are very high and...

The processes whereby security policy tackles security challenges and converts them into security priorities (at least since September 11, 2011) are criticized by experts working in the field as erratic and susceptible to media and society pressures. We are always being warned of the emergence...

One of the research areas of the New Agenda for European Security Economics (EUSECON) is society's response to insecurity. Solutions to enhance security often involve the development and supply of specific goods and services. This has led to an industry which has progressively evolved through...