1,720,958 research outputs found
Conclusion:The future of Ghana's petroleum industry
No full textIn recapping the central ethos of this book-which is about examining the lessons from ten years of oil and gas production in Ghana-it is pertinent to go back to the near-epiphanic statement made by Ghana's Former President, John Agyekum Kufuor, at the formal announcement of the first commercial oil discovery in the country on 19 June 2007. President Kufuor famously remarked.</p
Competitiveness of Ghana's upstream petroleum fiscal regime:Fit for purpose?
No full textThis chapter assesses the attractiveness of Ghana's upstream petroleum fiscal regime against key features of optimal fiscal policy, namely: efficiency of targeting economic rents, risk sharing, neutrality and progressiveness. We also identify potential fiscal reform options that Ghana can consider in optimising its fiscal regime. Various full lifecycle cash flow models are estimated using three oil field sizes-large (750 mmboe), medium (250 mmboe), small (50 mmboe)-with different cost profiles and four different pre-and post-Jubilee contract terms. Our results show that Ghana's fiscal regime is investor-friendly with an average effective tax rate (AETR) or government take of 51.38% from royalties, IOC income taxes, and additional oil entitlements (AOE). The inclusion of the State's Carried and Participating Interest (state take) pushes the AETR into the 65%-75% range, comparable with 65%-85% IMF benchmark values. In the context of Ghana's low resource base, this balances the trade-offs between investment promotion and securing revenues to the State, especially when compared with other countries in the region and beyond. Also, we find that Ghana's hybrid fiscal regime is regressive at the lower end of the oil price scale if oil prices are below 60/bbl. In terms of the windfall tax structure, simulations using four tax scenarios indicate that the current AOE regime underperforms on the size and timing of revenues generated to the State. The windfall tax regime can be vastly simplified and at the same time accrue more revenues to the State by reducing the current five tiers to one: using a higher top headline rate while also lowering the trigger threshold. Furthermore, Ghana can also consider introducing targeted fiscal packages aimed at maximising economic recovery of over 500 mmboe of stranded reserves. Finally, we note significant institutional challenges regarding the capacity of some State agencies to efficiently and effectively monitor petroleum costs. In the absence of a change to the fiscal regime, the ability of Ghana's regulatory and commercial institutions to monitor and audit costs will determine the extent to which the nation will generate significant revenues beyond just royalties and State participation.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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Upstream oil and gas in Ghana ::legal frameworks and emerging practice /
No full text"This book explores the myriad issues that play out in the upstream petroleum industry of Ghana from a legal perspective. Focusing on Ghana as an emerging petroleum country, Thomas Kojo Stephens begins by examining whether the existing constitutional framework will be effective in governing the expanding oil and gas sector. Drawing on various approaches proffered by other experts in the field, Stephens looks at possible institutional structures that could be put in place and juxtaposes these ideas with the experience of Ghana to test the efficacy of these proposals. He also explores the types of contractual frameworks currently implemented in Ghana for comparison with other emerging petroleum economies, examining the barriers to effectiveness, novel provisions that must be incorporated and lessons learned from other regions. Finally, the book highlights how vital it is for the Ghanaian State to monitor the use of petroleum revenue and make ethical investment decisions that prioritise the interests of Ghanaian citizens. Upstream Oil and Gas in Ghana will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy law and policy, oil and gas management and African Studies more broadly, as well as those working in the upstream petroleum industry"-
Slow But Sure, Africa\u27s Path To Democracy: [Bridled] Globalization, Education, and the Middle Class
Get PDFAfrica! The word has been associated with poverty, greed, brutality and gangsterism. Why is Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, still wallowing in poverty while the great mass of nations are moving forward, some taking strides while others making gargantuan leaps? Is there any hope that African countries will in large part become democratic? How do they get there? In this paper, I give a short historical background of how Africa has evolved over the years into modern day Africa in order to understand how Africa has come to be what, and where it is today. I make the argument that the only way by which Africa can attain democracy is by first and foremost having in place Rule of Law, however imperfect it may be. I further argue that consequent upon that, it is only the synergy of globalization in its controlled form, an educated populace, and a strong middle class that can be the catalyst, the fuel that can cause the essential ingredients of democracy to manifest itself in the society and eventually democracy take root. Lastly, I make recommendations as to how these can be achieved
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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