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1. MULTIPRIL: a new database on multilateral price levels and currency misalignments

Author:
Cécile Couharde, Carl Grekou, and Valérie Mignon
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
This paper describes the new CEPII-MULTIPRIL database on Multilateral Price Levels (MPL) introduced in 2020. The MULTIPRIL database covers a wide sample of 178 countries over the 1990-2018 period, and includes relative price level series computed vis-à-vis two sets of trading partners (177 and the top 30) according to three different trade-weighting schemes. It also contains MPL-based currency misalignments series for 156 countries over the 1991-2018 period. MULTIPRIL offers the potential to improve the coverage and quality of worldwide price-competitiveness comparisons. By focusing on price level data, it usefully complements the EQCHANGE database on equilibrium exchange rates and currency misalignments derived from series in indices. Its multilateral setting provides a more comprehensive picture of relative price levels and currency misalignments compared to existing bilateral measures.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Exchange Rate Policy, Trade, Database, and Price
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The National Oil Company Database

Author:
Natural Resource Governance Institute
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Natural Resource Governance Institute
Abstract:
The National Oil Company Database helps fill a significant gap in knowledge of the global economy. National oil companies (NOCs) produce approximately 55 percent of the world’s oil and gas, pumping out an estimated 85 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. The World Bank has estimated that they control up to 90 percent of global oil and gas reserves, thereby serving as gatekeepers for international oil companies’ access to hydrocarbons. Within their home countries, NOCs influence the degree to which billions of people benefit—or suffer—as a result of their countries’ hydrocarbon wealth. Many of these companies manage multi-billion-dollar portfolios of public assets, execute complex projects across their territories and at sea, employ citizens in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and perform a range of public services from providing energy to building infrastructure.
Topic:
Government, Oil, Economy, and Database
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Self-Determination and the Struggle for Success: Generalizing the Findings

Author:
Will Todman
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The cases in this volume, like most histories, often seemed to hinge on specific individuals and events. While we could draw some conclusions, we did not see a large number of clear and obvious patterns. Part of the challenge was the specificities of the cases themselves. Confoundingly, factors that loomed large over one case were either marginal or absent in others. For example, Kosovo would not likely have gained independence and achieved its current level of stability if not for the vast amount of international support it received, and yet, Eritreans managed to win independence and then function as a stable independent state (at least for a time) with remarkably little international involvement. In other instances, factors that had strongly positive effects in one circumstance sometimes seemed negative in another. Natural resource revenues were key to Timor-Leste’s post-independence success, for example, but in South Sudan profits from oil fueled the very corruption and violence that ripped the country apart. Part of the challenge, as well, was sample size. The CSIS project design contained a limited number of case studies to allow their exploration in depth. But with fewer than ten countries under study, we could be confusing unusual outcomes for normal occurrences and have missed strong patterns that would have emerged had our project examined a much larger number of case studies. In order to explore whether a broader approach would tell us things that a case-study approach would miss, CSIS constructed a database of all the countries that gained independence since 1960 and then analyzed the database to measure statistical correlations between certain variables and new states’ relative levels of success.
Topic:
Research, State Building, Academia, Survey, and Database
Political Geography:
Global Focus