Research Library

Fellows Joyce Beebe and Edward M. Emmett discuss the child care shortage in the U.S. and evaluate a variety of policy solutions.

Experts from the Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East explore the challenges facing the world’s 36 million refugees and internally displaced people.

The pandemic spurred a rollercoaster of quick, subsequent economic events in three years that might normally occur across three decades: record unemployment, a brief recession, federal assistance, highest inflation since the 1980s, interest rate increases, and in 2023, concerns regarding a looming recession. Some U.S. consumers have dealt with the aftermath of this whiplash by shifting their spending and saving behaviors. Our experts discuss U.S. consumer trends since the pandemic — what’s stayed the same, new phenomena, and notable policy developments. 

Hospital consolidation and acquisition of physician practices theoretically make sense by creating economies of scale and complementarities in patient services. But there is also evidence that such mergers do little to restrain prices or improve patient care. Click here for a Baker Institute podcast featuring Marah Short, associate director of the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences (CHB), who recently published a paper, co-authored by CHB director Vivian Ho, on the issue.