Research Library

The Office of the United States Trade Representative recently stepped back from ongoing negotiations on digital trade at the World Trade Organization, citing unsettled domestic policy, and suspended support for digital trade rules in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework too. But if the U.S. wants to be a part of the conversation, it should reengage and help craft rules flexible enough to meet its future domestic policy needs, writes nonresident fellow Simon Lester.

The number of children walking and biking to school has been in decline for more than 50 years, yet associated death and injury rates remain high. In a new brief, nonresident fellow Zoabe Hafeez and co-author Shruti Natarajan review child pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in Houston, analyzing the worst hotspots and identifying how infrastructure improvements can have outsized benefits.

America is facing a serious labor shortage. Expanding the TN visa — a pivotal pathway for Canadian and Mexican professionals originally created through NAFTA — can help the country close its growing workforce gaps, writes Tony Payan, director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico.

In a new brief, McClain Sampson, fellow in Maternal and Reproductive Health, and co-author Priscilla P. Kennedy summarize how the recent Texas Medicaid and CHIP extension will benefit families and explore the expected impacts of this extension.

Qualities like amazing tensile strength and electrical conductivity offer a huge range of uses for carbon nanotubes. In a new policy brief, fellow Rachel A. Meidl and her co-authors Dana Goerzen and Daniel A. Heller explain that to ensure carbon nanotubes’ role in a circular, sustainable economy, a coordinated system for classifying, testing, and identifying CNTs and a life cycle approach to risk assessments are needed to better understand impacts to facilitate consistent communication among researchers, industries, and policymakers.

Turkey currently hosts nearly 4 million refugees — predominantly Syrians who have fled their country’s civil war. Ensuring adequate legal protection for those seeking asylum and improving the capacity of Turkish institutions and civil society organizations to serve those in need is vital. This policy brief, based on a conversation with Refugee Solidarity Network founder and director Zaid Hydari, explains how domestic and international bodies can support the many refugees in Turkey.

Media stories have raised concerns about Florida’s expansion of advanced trauma centers, with newly designated centers charging high trauma activation fees for relatively minor injuries, and Texas has experienced similar expansion in the last decade. In a new working paper, Chair in Health Economics Vivian Ho and her co-authors study the association between trauma center upgrades and patient outcomes — examining Texas commercial claims to track changes in spending, mortality, and readmissions of trauma patients

In a new brief, contributing expert Robert Barron explores the first phase of the Israel-Hamas war and what stakeholders must consider for a viable pathway to peace.

Legislative action on the ballooning federal deficit is long overdue. Fellow John W. Diamond proposes a new nonpartisan fiscal commission to bypass congressional inaction on reform.

In a new commentary, fellow Joe Barnes lays out the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war, including President Joe Biden’s careful response to attacks by Iran-backed groups in the region.