OR Practice—Analysis of the Economic Effect of the Alaskan Oil Export Ban

Analysts in the federal government have repeatedly been drawn into the analytical debate over the merits of the existing ban on crude oil exports. This paper describes the most recent and sophisticated attempt to assess the economic effects of the export ban, employing a large nonlinear programming model of the world oil market. It describes the model, analysis, and analytical results, as well as the authors' perspectives on why the analysis failed to achieve its anticipated objectives. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the analysis for federal oil export policy, and by considering how the study results could have been made more accessible to federal policy makers.