Research Library

A Dec. 2018 workshop on money laundering in Mexico, held at Tecnológico de Monterrey and co-sponsored by the Baker Institute Mexico Center, resulted in the executive report below. It is written in Spanish. 

If the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is approved, this modified and modernized version of NAFTA will govern most economic relationships in North America. David A. Gantz, the Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics, reviews the USMCA and discusses its positive and negative elements.

This report reviews different types of income sources for kids and young adults and the associated tax implications. It also discusses the revised kiddie tax rules — a mechanism intended to discourage parents from transferring assets to their children to lower their own tax liabilities — after the 2017 tax act.

The sharing economy — an industry that includes a number of mostly online enterprises such as Uber and Airbnb that match service providers with clients — poses sweeping legal, commercial and social challenges. Fellow Joyce Beebe analyzes key federal tax considerations for companies and workers in this growing sector.

Why do unaccompanied minors flee their home countries and what happens when they reach Mexico or the United States?  This report provides an overview of the perilous journey and the reality of detention centers, concluding that a child-centric approach in both countries should address the needs of these children.

At a time when ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be highly speculative, this report attempts to objectively analyze and present the two major options for a negotiated peace and to explain the consequences for both of the parties involved and the international community.

Comprehensive, reliable, and publicly available data on China’s domestic oil flows and inventory movements are essentially inaccessible. In this report, the authors propose creating a forum to collect and analyze satellite data to shed more light on the inner workings of China's oil sector.

This report analyzes the comparable transactions method for valuing groundwater, which involves examining transactions for groundwater purchases or sales to gather pricing information, and explores how this method can be applied to groundwater valuations in Texas.

What should new and established Houstonians know about area flooding caused by hurricanes? How can they avoid buying a home in a flood zone or contact the policymakers who decide where development can occur? Rice faculty fellow Jim Blackburn discusses these issues and more in this guide to living with flooding in Houston.

This report outlines U.S. policy options in Syria for the Trump administration, based on deliberations and proposals that emerged from the Baker Institute event “Syria: Policy Options for the Trump Administration.”