Much has been written recently about China's emergence as a potential oil power. Comparisons have ranged from those that picture China as another Middle East, with a Middle East-like impact on future global oil markets, to more modest images of an oil-producing nation that can meet its rapidly expanding internal needs through the late 1980s and still have some oil for export to its neighbor, Japan. Yet to fulfill even the latter prediction, the People's Republic of China will have to surmount a series of substantial political and technical obstacles. This book identifies those constraints, assesses the likelihood of China's overcoming them, examines the incentives for increasing Chinese petroleum exports, and analyzes the role such exports could play in Peking's foreign policy.
This book contributes to re cent developments on the statistical analysis of multiple time series in the presence of regime shifts. Markov-switching models have become popular for modelling non-linearities and regime shifts, mainly, in univariate eco nomic time series. This study is intended to provide a systematic and operational ap proach to the econometric modelling of dynamic systems subject to shifts in regime, based on the Markov-switching vector autoregressive model. The study presents a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical properties of Markov-switching vector autoregressive processes and the related statistical methods. The statistical concepts are illustrated with applications to empirical business cyde research. This monograph is a revised version of my dissertation which has been accepted by the Economics Department of the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 1996. It con sists mainly of unpublished material which has been presented during the last years at conferences and in seminars. The major parts of this study were written while I was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschajt (DFG), Berliner Graduier tenkolleg Angewandte Mikroökonomik and Sondeiforschungsbereich 373 at the Free University and Humboldt-University of Berlin. Work was finally completed in the project The Econometrics of Macroeconomic Forecasting founded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) at the Institute of Economies and Statistics, University of Oxford. It is a pleasure to record my thanks to these institutions for their support of my research embodied in this study.
China's two decades of rapid economic growth have fueled a demand for energy that has outstripped domestic sources of supply. China became a net oil importer in 1993, and the country's dependence on energy imports is expected to continue to grow over the next 20 years, when it is likely to import some 60 percent of its oil and at least 30 percent of its natural gas. China thus is having to abandon its traditional goal of energyself-sufficiency--brought about by a fear of strategic vulnerability--and look abroad for resources. This study looks at the measures that China is taking to achieve energy security and the motivations behind those measures. It considers China's investment in overseas oil exploration and development projects, interest in transnational oil pipelines, plans for a strategic petroleum reserve, expansion of refineries to process crude supplies from the Middle East, development of the natural gas industry, and gradual opening of onshore drilling areas to foreign oil companies. The author concludes that these activities are designed, in part, to reduce the vulnerability of China's energy supply to U.S. power. China's international oil and gas investments, however, are unlikely to bring China theenergy security it desires. China is likely to remain reliant on U.S. protection of the sea-lanes that bring the country most of its energy imports.
As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.
An Introduction to Wavelets and Other Filtering Methods in Finance and Economics presents a unified view of filtering techniques with a special focus on wavelet analysis in finance and economics. It emphasizes the methods and explanations of the theory that underlies them. It also concentrates on exactly what wavelet analysis (and filtering methods in general) can reveal about a time series. It offers testing issues which can be performed with wavelets in conjunction with the multi-resolution analysis. The descriptive focus of the book avoids proofs and provides easy access to a wide spectrum of parametric and nonparametric filtering methods. Examples and empirical applications will show readers the capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages of each method. - The first book to present a unified view of filtering techniques - Concentrates on exactly what wavelets analysis and filtering methods in general can reveal about a time series - Provides easy access to a wide spectrum of parametric and non-parametric filtering methods
This paper presents a simple macroeconomic model of the oil market. The model incorporates features of oil supply such as depletion, endogenous oil exploration and extraction, as well as features of oil demand such as the secular increase in demand from emerging-market economies, usage efficiency, and endogenous demand responses. The model provides, inter alia, a useful analytical framework to explore the effects of: a change in world GDP growth; a change in the efficiency of oil usage; and a change in the supply of oil. Notwithstanding that shale oil production today is more responsive to prices than conventional oil, our analysis suggests that an era of prolonged low oil prices is likely to be followed by a period where oil prices overshoot their long-term upward trend.
By the end of the 21st century, our oil and natural gas supplies will be virtually nonexistent, and limited coal supplies will be restricted to only a handful of countries. The authors - an environmental scientist and veteran journalist - make abundantly clear that we must plan for a future without reliance on oil. They make a compelling case that the key determinant of our global economy is not so much the invisible hand of the marketplace but the inexorable laws of ecology. Although the coming decades will be a time of much disruption and change of lifestyle, in the end we may learn a wiser, more sustainable stewardship of our natural resources. This timely, sobering, yet constructive discussion of energy and ecology offers a realistic vision of the near future and many important lessons about the limits of our resources.
Inside the engine-room of China's economic growth—the China Development Bank Anyone wanting a primer on the secret of China's economic success need look no further than China Development Bank (CDB)—which has displaced the World Bank as the world's biggest development bank, lending billions to countries around the globe to further Chinese policy goals. In China’s Superbank, Bloomberg authors Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson outline how the bank is at the center of China's domestic economic growth and how it is helping to expand China's influence in strategically important overseas markets. 100 percent owned by the Chinese government, the CDB holds the key to understanding the inner workings of China's state-led economic development model, and its most glaring flaws. The bank is at the center of the country's efforts to build a world-class network of highways, railroads, and power grids, pioneering a lending scheme to local governments that threatens to spawn trillions of yuan in bad loans. It is doling out credit lines by the billions to Chinese solar and wind power makers, threatening to bury global competitors with a flood of cheap products. Another $45 billion in credit has been given to the country's two biggest telecom equipment makers who are using the money to win contracts around the globe, helping fulfill the goal of China's leaders for its leading companies to "go global." Bringing the story of China Development Bank to life by crisscrossing China to investigate the quality of its loans, China’s Superbank travels the globe, from Africa, where its China-Africa fund is displacing Western lenders in a battle for influence, to the oil fields of Venezuela. Offers a fascinating insight into the China Development Bank (CDB), the driver of China's rapid economic development Travels the globe to show how the CDB is helping Chinese businesses "go global" Written by two respected reporters at Bloomberg News As China's influence continues to grow around the world, many people are asking how far it will extend. China’s Superbank addresses these vital questions, looking at the institution at the heart of this growth.
