Discovery Of Natural Resources Research Articles

The Role of Ideas and Identities in Shaping Economic Decisions: The Eastern Mediterranean Crisis and Turkey-Greece-Cyprus Triangle

The discovery of new natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean fueled the tension in the region and led to a highly complicated crisis involving multiple actors. This study adopts a constructivist approach in analyzing the political economy of the Eastern Mediterranean energy crisis by relying on the role of identities and ideas in shaping economic decisions. The historical enmity between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus is at the heart of the crisis. Thus, the study focuses on the Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus triangle to reveal the impact of Turkey’s image constructed by Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, on the political-economic aspect of the decisions of Greece and Greek Cypriots. To accomplish this objective, a two-stage content analysis was conducted by filtering the official statements of Greece and the RoC from their respective foreign ministries, utilizing the keyword “Eastern Mediterranean.” By scrutinizing the official discourses and documents, the analysis aims to delve into the image of Turkey held by these actors.

The Green Tree Agreement over Bakassi: The Perception of the Bakassi Inhabitants towards its Implementation

The Bakassi ruckus between Cameroon and Nigeria was primarily caused by colonialism and the discovery of natural resources in the area. This conflict was solved by the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling of October 10, 2002. To agree that they have stopped hostilities, Cameroon and Nigeria signed the Green Tree Agreement (GTA). The main thrust of this paper is to showcase the Bakassi inhabitants’ perception and views of Cameroon’s implementation of GTA. We obtained data from secondary interviews and observations. Interviews were conducted in the Bamusso, and Idabato subdivisions in Bakassi using snowball and purposive sample techniques. To analyse the data obtained, content and thematic analyses were used, as well as liaising them with the concepts of peace agreement and perception. From the paper's findings, it reveals that the level of development, security, interaction with official, and environmental problems are the inhabitants’ main views. It also reveals that, according to the people, the Cameroon government needs to do a lot on development and tackling environmental issues. The issue of security and interaction with Cameroon officials has positive thumbs up. This paper suggests that the Cameroon government should prioritize infrastructure development and address environmental issues in the Bakassi region. This will go a long way to ensure and preserve peace in the area.

Copper oxide nanoparticles fabricated by green chemistry using Tribulus terrestris seed natural extract-photocatalyst and green electrodes for energy storage device

Nanobiotechnology is a unique class of multiphase and recently become a branch of contemporary science and a paradigm shift in material research. One of the two main problems facing the field of nanomaterial synthesis is the discovery of new natural resources for the biological production of metal nanoparticles and the absence of knowledge about the chemical composition of bio-source required for synthesis and the chemical process or mechanism behind the production of metal nanoparticles presents the second difficulty. We reported template-free green synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles using Tribulus terrestris seed natural extract without any isolation process. XRD, TEM, SEM, UV–Vis, DLS, zeta potential, and BET evaluated the synthesized metal nanoparticle. The TEM analysis confirmed that the CuO NPs are well dispersed and almost round in shape with an average size of 58 nm. EDAX confirms that copper is the prominent metal present in the nanomaterial. The greener fabricated copper oxide nanoparticle was employed to degrade methyl orange dye, almost 84% of methyl orange was degraded within 120 min. The outcomes demonstrated the nanomaterial’s effective breakdown of contaminants, highlighting their potential for environmental rehabilitation. The electrochemical investigation of the CuO NPs was utilized for supercapacitor application. An appreciable value of specific capacitance is 369 F/g specific capacitances with 96.4% capacitance retention after 6000 cycles. Overall, the results of the current study show that the biologically produced copper oxide nanoparticles have intriguing uses as photocatalysts for treating water contaminants and are suitable for energy storage devices.

Do natural resources lead to a curse or blessing in terms of income inequality?

This study examines the effects of the revenues generated by the extraction of natural resource reserves on income distribution in countries with natural resource reserves. The theoretical underpinning is based on the view that natural resources, which are defined in the literature as the natural resources curse, cause many adverse macroeconomic and political effects on countries' natural resource discoveries and revenues from extracted natural resources. The study aims to investigate whether natural resources have adverse effects on income inequality for countries with higher revenues of natural resources and abundant natural resources. For this purpose, we perform estimations using the system GMM estimator for low-income, lower-middle-income and natural resources-rich countries in the period 2009–2019. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between natural resource rent and income inequality. In other words, natural resource rent has a cursing effect up to a threshold, then it has a blessing effect on income inequality. We also find an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and income inequality. Additionally, the rule of law has a negative effect on income inequality.

Winning and losing the resource lottery: Governance after uncertain oil discoveries

Natural resource discoveries are often followed by delays and uncertain production outcomes, creating challenges for governments that anticipate resource revenues. I leverage exogenous subnational variation in offshore oil discoveries in Brazil to identify dynamic effects of discovery news and revenue shocks on local public finances, public goods provision, and politics. Municipalities where discoveries are realized enjoy significant growth in revenues and spending, but fail to improve public goods provision or stimulate economic activity. Municipalities that experience discovery announcements but never receive windfalls suffer long-term declines in revenues, investment, and public goods provision relative to never-treated controls. I show that electoral responses underlie these dynamics: discovery announcements draw less-educated candidates into local politics, and shortfalls between anticipated and realized oil revenues increase political turnover. Findings highlight discovery uncertainty as a fundamental resource governance challenge, and reveal mismanagement of windfalls and adjustment costs after disappointment as two faces of the Resource Curse.

The biography of discovery: How unintentional discovery of resources influences choice and preference.

An archeologist discovers a 1,500-year-old Viking sword at the bottom of a lake. Would people be more drawn to the sword if they knew that the discovery was intentional, or unintentional? The current research examines this previously unexplored type of biographical narrative-the biography of the discovery of historical and natural resources. We propose that unintentionality in the discovery of a resource can shape choice and preference. We focus our investigation on resources because the event of discovery is an inherent component in the biography of all known historical and natural resources, and because these resources are either themselves already objects (like historical artifacts) or are the building blocks of virtually all objects. Eight laboratory studies and one field experiment indicate that the unintentional discovery of resources heightens the choice of and preference for the resources. We find that the unintentional discovery of a resource triggers counterfactual thoughts about how the discovery might not have occurred, increasing perceptions that the discovery was fated, consequently driving choice of and preference for the resource. Further, we identify the level of expertise of the discoverer as a theoretically relevant moderator of this effect, finding that the effect is eliminated in the case of novice discoverers. It arises for resources discovered by experts with the rationale that unintentional discovery by an expert is unexpected, and therefore prompts heightened counterfactual thoughts. However, resources discovered by novices for which discovery is unexpected whether it is intentional or unintentional are preferred at equally high rates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Japan-Korea Joint Development Agreement: with Particular References to Revising the Deadlock Resolution Mechanism

1. On 30 January 1974, in order to break the deadlock that had developed in the boundary negotiations for the southern part of the continental shelf since the release of a United Nations-sponsored report in 1969, which observed that “a high probability exists that the continental shelf between Taiwan [Region] and Japan may be one of the most prolific oil reservoirs in the world”,1 Japan and South Korea (Korea) signed the Japan-Korea Joint Development Agreement.2 The entry into force of this Agreement on 22 June 1978 apparently marked the end of this longstanding deadlock. 2. However, in 2020, an outstanding study titled Korea-Japan JDZ to End in Deadlock would reveal that the absence of oil production in the Japan-Korea Joint Development Zone (Japan-Korea JDZ or JDZ) is probably due to a deadlock in joint cooperation rather than a failure in discovering any exploitable resources. This deadlock, according to Choi’s analysis,3 may be summed up as follows: Japan has claimed for years and may now have concluded that there has been no commercial discovery of natural resources in the Japan-Korea JDZ, and as a result, did not authorize any concessionaires during the 2009-2017 exploration period, whereas Korea believes that economically exploitable resources are very likely to be found in the JDZ and desires to resume joint exploration operations.4 In light of this, it seems to be exceedingly difficult to predict what will happen to this Agreement once its initial fifty-year validity period ends in 2028.

What drives sustainable development? Evaluating the role of oil and coal resources for selected resource rich economies

The goal of this study is to determine the link between the availability of natural resources, the use of renewable energy, and NRE in the economic development of five selected nations from 1990 to 2020: the United States, China, Canada, Brazil, and India. For stationarity and cointegration studies, this study employs the cross-sectionally enhanced dickey fuller test and Westerlund's (2007) cointegration approach, adopting the CS-ARDL model for the chosen variables on economic development of the chosen nations. The CS-ARDL model was used to derive the empirical results, which show that consumption of FFC and carbon emissions both speed up economic growth in the short and long terms. However, this study also found that for all the chosen countries, the impact of these two factors is greater in the long term than in the short term. While NRE sources like coal and oil rent have a detrimental impact on economic growth, the same is true with REC. One might infer from the outcomes of this study that the resource curse concept affects both industrialised and developing nations. Whereas excessive rents and resource consumption necessitate the discovery of additional natural resources to meet rising consumer demand. However, meeting the high demand for nonrenewable or REC sources proves to be both a short-term and long-term burden for the economic growth of these particular countries.

Review of Unconventional Natural Gas Liquefaction Processes

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has become an important part in the energy industry on account of its high energy density, low carbon emission, and convenient transportation. In recent years, with the discovery of unconventional natural gas resources, the situation of the world’s natural gas liquefaction plants using conventional natural gas as feedstock is changing. Unlike traditional LNG plants, unconventional natural gas liquefaction processes require special considerations in design and manufacturing. This review summarizes and analyzes the characteristics and differences of several typical unconventional natural gas liquefaction processes compared to traditional natural gas liquefaction processes, including coalbed methane liquefaction, synthetic natural gas liquefaction, LNG-FPSO, and PLNG (pressurized liquefied natural gas). Moreover, a state-of-the-art review of the recent progress on design and optimization of unconventional natural gas liquefaction processes is presented.

Oil-price Shocks and Economic Growth: A Review of Literature

This study reviews oil-price shocks and economic growth with the aim of providing an in-depth knowledge based on the existing literature. The study uses content analysis coupled with trends analysis from 1981-2020. Brent crude oil price which represents a uniform substitute for oil price at the international oil market is used. Six (6) theories that links oil price and economic growth are considered. Out of the theories, the study anchors its theoretical framework on Dutch Disease Theory because the neglect of other sectors especially the developing oil-exporting/producing countries due to the discovery of natural resources (crude oil) has affected their economic growth. Documented evidences show that shocks in oil price hinder economic growth. The trend analysis also indicates unexpected movements in oil price (increase/decrease) whenever there is a shock. Based on this, necessitates the need for most oil-producing developing countries to look beyond the oil sector to prevent their economies from being mono-culturally based by developing indigenous products and in this process reduce the importation of those goods that can be produced locally.

Review of Korean Imitation and Innovation in the Last 60 Years

This review is dedicated to analyzing South Korean technological progress, which has shown impressive economic performance, which has earned South Korea a well-deserved place among industrialized countries. Korea’s advances in the electronics, semiconductors, automotive, and shipbuilding industries have demonstrated industrial maturity and high innovative ability. To understand how they reached their position today, we have to understand to the core of the process by researching the roots of these innovations over the past 60 years, identifying specific innovations and tracing their transmission throughout South Korea. The technology transfer and development model of South Korea is unique. After other countries refused to license and transfer modern technologies to this country, Korea resorted to its national research system to add innovative content to its imitative products. This review article summarizes the experience of Korea, from not having access to technology to innovation and economic progress, which led to increases in per capita income, the prosperity of urbanization, and the recovery of markets. The model of technology transfer in Korea is valuable, especially for today’s developing countries. What it offers is not pure theory, but rather a successive series of procedures undertaken by the government of Korea. It has not been a matter of chance, and their economic prosperity was not due to the sudden discovery of natural resources.

Bioactive Natural Medicinal Plants in South Indian Western Ghats and Their Pharmacological Importance

Awareness of traditional knowledge and medicinal plants can play a key role in the utilization and discovery of natural plant resources. Plants became the basis of medicine system throughout the world for thousands of years and continue to provide mankind with new remedies. Researchers generally agree that natural products from plants and other organisms have been the most consistently successful source for ideas for new drugs. The world health organization estimates that 80% of the population living in the developing countries relies exclusively on traditional medicine for their primary health care. More than half of the world's population still relies entirely on plants for medicines, and plants supply the active ingredients of most traditional medical products. The review shows the south Indian medicinal plant products has been used by people to treat various health ailments.

The enclave hypothesis and Dutch disease effect: A critical appraisal of Mali's gold mining industry

The main purpose of this paper is to test whether there are significant backward linkages from gold mining to manufacturing in Mali over the period 1982–2017. The analysis also examines the relevance of the ‘Dutch disease’ effect in Mali, where the discovery and exploitation of natural resources lead to a real exchange rate appreciation and a subsequent contraction of the manufacturing sector. Related studies on Mali are scarce, but those that do exist find support for Singer's enclave hypothesis, which states that mining is disconnected from the rest of the economy. A novel feature of the empirical strategy adopted in this paper relative to previous research is that we use both survey data collected from fieldwork and a vector error-correction model (VECM) to test for linkage effects and the Dutch disease hypothesis. The evidence shows that there are significant and persistent backward linkages from gold mining to manufacturing in Mali, thus providing a more optimistic view than the enclave hypothesis of previous research. The survey data, backed up by the econometric evidence, find that both gold mining companies and local suppliers are eager to do business with each other, and that both expect to strengthen their business ties in the near future. At the same time, however, the evidence suggests that there remains ample scope to strengthen backward linkages. We draw on the survey data analysis to suggest several practical policy measures. The econometric evidence rejects the Dutch disease hypothesis. The significant long-run effect of the real exchange rate on manufacturing output, however, provides another channel through which natural resource windfalls could boost industrial development in Mali. Overall, the evidence suggests that the natural resource sector can play a significant role to initiate industrial development, and that government policy is a key conduit to establish and strengthen backward linkages.

Natural resource governance, accountability and legitimising propensity: insights from Ghana's oil and gas sector

PurposeThis study explores Ghanaian views about accountability discharge by firms and government in the context of the nation's newly discovered oil and gas resources. The research focusses on a range of issues relating to stakeholder interaction, communication flows and the impact of decision-making on Ghanaian lives, as perceived by individuals on the ground.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adapts elements of legitimacy theory to interpret the outcome of a series of semi-structured interviews with members of key accountee and accountor groups including citizens and representatives of the state and private firms in the oil and gas industry in Ghana.FindingsThe results indicate that rather than attempting to effect substantive accountability discharge, Ghana's government and oil and gas firms employ a wide range of legitimation strategies despite the apparently complete absence of the accountee power normally seen as driving the need for social contract repair.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings suggest that accountability discharge in Ghana is cursory at best, with several legitimising strategies in evidence. The representatives from state institutions appear to share some of the concerns, suggesting that the problems are entrenched and will require robust enforcement of a strengthened regulatory approach to effect meaningful change.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature on the discharge of institutional accountability by building on earlier conceptualisations of legitimacy theory to explore perceptions around a recent natural resource discovery. The analysis highlights grave concerns regarding the behaviour of state and corporate actors, one that runs counter to sub-Saharan African tradition.

Studying the flip side of migrant remittances: A panel cointegration analysis of 18 selected Asian countries

This study is an attempt to gauge the effect of remittances on Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) with the help of a panel of 18 selected Asian countries. The period considered for this study is from 1998 to 2016. To achieve the objective of the study, along with Pedroni panel cointegration technique, ‘Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square’ and ‘Dynamic Ordinary Least Square’ methods were applied. The results of the study suggest that remittances exert upward pressure on REER. In case of both the estimators (FMOLS and DOLS), the coefficient of remittances is negative and statistically significant at 1% level. Impulse response functions (IRFs) derived from the Panel Vector Auto Regressive model (PVAR) exhibits similar kind of results. The results obtained from this study raise the concerns similar to the ones raised by the Dutch disease or discoveries of natural resources leading to the appreciation of REER.

Natural resources and income inequality in developed countries: synthetic control method evidence

We examine the causal effect of natural resource discoveries on income inequality using the synthetic control method on data from 1947 to 2009. We focus on the natural discoveries in Denmark, Netherlands, and Norway in the 1960–1970s and use top 1% and top 10% income share as the measure of income inequality. Many previous studies have been concerned that natural resources may increase income inequality. To the contrary, our results suggest that natural resources decrease income inequality or have no effect. We attribute this effect to the high institutional quality of countries we examine.

When ‘Pockets of effectiveness’ matter politically: Extractive industry regulation and taxation in Uganda and Tanzania

It is a common view that states in the developing world with substantial extractive natural resource discoveries may not have the capacity to tax and regulate multinational companies in the sector. In this article, we show that ruling elites in recently resource-rich Tanzania, and in Uganda – expected to become resource-rich in the foreseeable future - have learned from the resource curse: they seek to construct ‘pockets of effectiveness’ (POEs) to regulate and tax natural resources. We explain the political incentives to create such pockets by combining insights from the POE and the Political Settlement literatures. We argue that POEs are likely to be established in emerging resource-rich countries with three characteristics: some degree of competitive elections; widespread voter expectations of future natural resource prosperity; and absence of powerful domestic firms in the sector who can resist taxation. The political benefits of such POEs are higher revenues that can boost government spending power and, hence, political legitimacy. These outweigh the political costs of establishing POEs, namely rents and patronage foregone. This insight is missed in much of the writings on the impact of natural resource wealth in African countries.

Impact of Turmoil and Gas Resources in the Eastern Mediterranean on Jordanian Energy Security and Foreign Policy

The Mediterranean region has witnessed a lot of turbulence in the last decade. On the one hand, the Arab uprising changed the shape of the regional relations towards more rivalry. On the other hand, the discovery of natural gas resources has opened up a valuable chance for cooperation and settling the long-standing disputes. Jordan is affected by what happens in the Mediterranean region in more than one aspect. The various economic difficulties including energy insecurity, resulting from multiple refugee crises and the interruption of Egyptian gas is one of the most critical challenges Jordan has ever faced. As a heavy energy importer, the Jordanian energy sector is very sensitive to the regional and International context. The recently discovered Eastern Mediterranean gas is an attractive energy resource for Jordan. Nonetheless, a fear of its influence on the Jordanian foreign policy in the Palestinian context has grown. This article discusses the impact of the recent turmoil in the Mediterranean region on Jordan energy security. It tracks the change of energy security in Jordan between 2010 and 2018 using a proposed energy security framework. The article also discusses the potential implications of Jordan’s decision to import the Mediterranean gas through Israel on Jordanian energy security using the proposed energy security framework. Moreover, the article utilizes semi-systematic literature review methodology to analyze international, regional and national contexts in order to investigate the potential ramifications of that decision on Jordanian foreign policy regarding the Palestinian cause.

A New Developmentalist model of structural change, economic growth and middle-income traps

When a rapidly growing country stagnates at middle-income levels and fails to transition into a high-income economy, we say it has fallen into a middle-income trap. An original interpretation of the causes of this phenomenon was offered in recent years by the so-called Brazilian New Developmentalist School. It must be noted, however, that this approach lacks a coherent formalization of its main propositions. This article aims at filling this gap in the literature. We assess, analytically and through numerical simulations, whether the Dutch disease can be propelled by the discovery of natural resources and the adoption of an external savings growth strategy. In both cases, a class coalition between workers and rentiers leads to an overvaluation of the real exchange rate. As a consequence, inflation is kept under control while artificially increasing real wages and financial incomes. The model provides a bridge between classical development theory and demand-led growth theories, drawing on elements from both traditions.

Gravity sensing: cold atom trap onboard a 6U CubeSat

“Cold atoms” can be used as ultra-sensitive sensors for measuring accelerations and are capable of mapping changes in the strength of gravity across the surface of the Earth. They could offer significant benefits to existing space based gravity sensing capabilities. Gravity sensors in space are already used for many Earth observation applications including monitoring polar ice mass, ocean currents and sea level. Cold atom sensors could enable higher resolution measurements which would allow monitoring of smaller water sources and discovery of new underground natural resources which are currently undetectable. The adoption of cold atom technology is constrained by low technology readiness level (TRL). Teledyne e2v and its partners are addressing this maturity gap through project Cold Atom Space PAyload (CASPA) which is an Innovate UK and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded project, involving the University of Birmingham as science lead, XCAM, Clyde Space, Covesion, Gooch & Housego, and the University of Southampton. Through the CASPA project the consortium have built and vibration tested a 6U (approximate dimensions: 100 × 200 × 300 mm) cube Satellite (CubeSat) that is capable of laser cooling atoms down to 100’s of micro kelvin, as a pre-cursor to gravity sensors for future Earth observation missions.