The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce its new class of %fellowship1%. This year’s fellows – 26 outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from 23 countries in transition – have been selected from more than 800 applications. They will be on the Stanford campus for three weeks, from July 28 to August 15, 2008.

Since its inception, the Summer Fellows Program has created a network of more than 90 emerging leaders from 30 transitioning countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Rwanda. Draper Hills Summer Fellows are former prime ministers and presidential advisors, senators and attorneys general, journalists and civic activists, academics and members of the international development community. They are united in their dedication to improving or establishing democratic governance, economic growth, and the rule of law in their countries.

The three-week program is led by an interdisciplinary (and all-volunteer) team of leading Stanford University faculty associated with the center. Class sessions, however, are not only led by CDDRL-affiliated faculty and researchers but also by the fellows themselves, who focus discussions on the concrete challenges they face in their ongoing development work. In this way, fellows have the opportunity to learn from one another’s rich experiences in the field of international political and economic development.

One of the selected fellows, an opposition politician from Singapore, was prevented from leaving her home country shortly before the program began.

The price of a barrel of oil has more than doubled in the past year and a half, from $60 in early 2007 to a high of $142 earlier this summer. This has led to a search for someone to blame for this price increase and for government policies to reduce oil prices.

The actions of energy traders, more pejoratively known as speculators, are being targeted by Ralph Nader, the chief executives of the major domestic airlines and many members of Congress as a major cause of this price increase. However, data from world oil market demonstrates that it is unlikely that speculators have had a noticeable impact on world oil prices.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, recently called on President Bush "to
draw down a small portion" of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce oil prices. But this is unlikely to have a discernible effect on world oil prices.

Oil is a relatively homogenous commodity traded in a world market with a demand of 85
million barrels a day, of which 25 percent is consumed by the United States. The demand for oil is insensitive to changes in the price of oil, particularly in oil-producing countries, where its use may be subsidized. Recent research suggests a 10 percent increase in the price of oil would reduce world demand by no more than 1 percent.

Speculators are accused of increasing the price of oil by taking large financial positions in oil futures markets. But these bets on the future price of oil have no impact on the current price of oil if the current demand equals the current supply, meaning there is no net change in inventories of oil.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, commercial inventories of oil
currently held by the major industrialized countries are below their five-year average. That means consumers are willing to purchase all available supply and run down inventories at the current high price. Given that market outcome, the behavior of speculators cannot be inflating the price.

What would speculators have to do to increase the world price of oil by $25 relative to a
$100 baseline? They would need to buy and put into inventory approximately 2.5 percent of world demand, or approximately 2.125 million barrels a day. Over the course of a year, this would amount to storing 775 million barrels, which is the current amount in the our country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Applying this same logic to Speaker Pelosi's recommendation to draw down a small
portion of the reserve--say 100 million barrels over the course of a three-month period--this 1-million-barrel-a-day increase in supply implies at best a three-month-long $12.50 reduction in the price of oil relative to its current price of $125.

However, according to the Energy Information Administration, world inventories of oil
held by industry and government are on the order of 7 billion to 8 billion barrels. So a more likely outcome of withdrawing 1 million barrels a day from the government's reserves for three months is that privately held inventories would increase one-for-one, and world oil prices would be unaffected.

Although energy traders are a convenient scapegoat for the current high price of oil, the
numbers just don't add up for their actions to have any significant impact on market prices. A strong world demand, not the actions of speculators, is responsible.
But releasing a small amount of oil from the U.S. reserve may still make sense. Given
historically high prices--and the great need for government revenues--this may be a fortuitous time to sell oil and take advantage of the market.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRANK A. WOLAK is a professor of economics at Stanford University specializing in the
energy sector. He is chairman of the California Independent System Operator's Market
Surveillance Committee, an independent monitor for the electricity supply industry. He wrote
this article for the Mercury News.

For the past ten years, Japan has undergone aggressive, government-driven reforms aimed at changing its financial systems, labor markets, and corporate governance institutions. Faced with the challenges of globalization and an ageing population, Japan undertook these reforms to regain its former competitiveness. What remains uncertain, however, is whether these reforms will also be effective in creating an environment
that is more favorable to entrepreneurship and innovation. If the reforms are effective, at what pace, and in what shape will new firms emerge? Will Japan’s system mirror the institutions that have evolved in regions such as Silicon Valley, or will it develop into a new framework of innovation?

The persistent decline in Japanese asset values during the 1990s engendered many policy and legal responses. Among these was a series of business policy and associated legal reforms intended to foster the creation of new companies, new industries, and new financial institutions. Starting in 1997, these reforms included changes in how firms are formed. For example, the capital required to start a stock-issuing firm was reduced from ten million yen to a mere one yen. The yugen kaisha—a secondary form of Japanese company—was also abolished and the limited liability partnership created instead. Holding companies were allowed, mergers were deregulated, treasury shares were authorized, and the liability of company directors was limited.

Additional reforms were promulgated to encourage new forms of financial intermediation. Tax benefits created for “angel” investors, foreign venture capitalists, foreign private equity, and foreign lawyers became common. Purchase of shares with shares, triangular mergers, and repurchase of shares were all allowed. Moreover, several new stock exchanges were created expressly for relatively new companies.

Corporate governance laws were also revised. For one, Japanese firms may now use U.S.-style board of director committees, with an upper limit placed on directors’ liabilities. Japanese auditors are now required to be outsiders, and consolidated accounting is likewise compulsory, as well as “mark-to-market” rules for financial reporting. These are just a few of the changes, all of which combine to increase transparency in Japan’s markets.

The results were noticeable. By 2006, new companies were garnering price-to-earnings ratios of greater than 100 to 1 in the new markets; the number of IPOs per year was comparable to the rate during the U.S. Internet bubble; and the mergers and acquisition market was transformed from one of the most moribund in the world to one of the most dynamic. Venture capital firms proliferated, as did new law firms, private equity firms, and foreign banks. Existing Japanese banks merged, new banks formed, and money-lending began again. Some new companies even gained sufficient liquidity and stature to turn their founders into celebrities and some of the wealthiest people in Japan. Rakuten, Mixi, ValueCommerce, and Cybird are just a few of these success stories. Japan is currently in its seventy-first month of economic expansion—the longest of the postwar period.

The future, however, is unclear. As Professor Yoko Ishikura, of Hitotsubashi University, recently observed at a SPRIE seminar at Stanford, “Japan is at a turning point and it is uncertain which direction it will choose.” For 2008, IPO valuations have returned to levels more comparable to those in the United States, and the climate for startups has moderated somewhat. New company startup rates are flat and IPO rates have recently dipped significantly. Some prominent studies of the entrepreneurial climate in various countries rank Japan among the least favorable. Many observers are impatient for more evidence of results from the reforms. It remains an open question whether Japan is being affected by the U.S. slowdown and commodity price increases, or if the country is simply retreating from it entrepreneurial gains.

In light of these developments, scholars remain curious: Are the reforms permanently changing the Japanese economy? Are the reforms sufficient to meet the challenges that Japan faces? Will the reforms be effective? Alternatively, are these reforms even desirable? SPRIE and the U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center, in cooperation with selected experts and research organizations in Japan, are undertaking
a major project to study the seemingly contradictory corporate and social climate in Japan, which is at present stretched between entrepreneurial and more conservative forces.

Japan’s economic relationship with the countries of the Pacific Rim—and indeed with the rest of the world—is vital to all of the economies involved. If Japan is transforming into a new economic culture, an understanding of that transformation is relevant both to global economic development and to the study of entrepreneurial growth.