Research Library

The 2018 utility fires north of Boston revealed opportunities for PHMSA to reassess and remodel strategic enterprise operations that ensure continuous improvement and sustainability in business practices, regulation review and development, collaboration across the agency, and transparency, writes fellow Rachel A. Meidl.

On August 31, 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the shared goal of accelerating and streamlining the permit application review process for proposed LNG facilities. Fellow Rachel A. Meidl explores the significance and possible impact of this MOU.

The responses of Morocco's monarchy to the rise of the PJD are examined for what they suggest about the monarchy’s perception of its vulnerabilities and because they help to frame the environment in which the PJD and the regime operate.

In this issue brief, the authors examine the amount of growth and transactional venture capital (VC) in Houston, finding the the city lacks sufficient levels of growth VC needed to support its goals of establishing a high-growth, high technology startup ecosystem.

While academic and popular debates tend to focus on differential benefits and costs of trade across countries or industries, this brief highlights winners and losers at the level of individual firms. The authors demonstrate that preferential liberalization produces concentrated benefits among a relatively small number of very large and productive firms.

Brazil's economy is among those most closed to foreign trade. Debate on trade policy has returned to the political agenda, but domestic and international circumstances do not currently favor reform. This brief discusses the outlook for trade policy reform in Brazil during President Michel Temer's term and the challenges that will be faced by any succeeding government.

This brief argues that, in contrast to the pessimism and ongoing recession in Latin America generated by the collapse of commodity prices, there are reasons for optimism in the area of external financing.

This issue brief examines the various foreign policy strategies advanced by Worker’s Party-led administrations in Brazil since 2003. The brief also analyzes the current political and economic crises that have increased strain on the party’s leaders.

Trade and financial shocks have worsened Latin America’s economic prospects in the past year. Latin America — and South America in particular — are expected to perform poorly into 2016.

Pedro da Motta Veiga, nonresident fellow for the Latin America Initiative, and Sandra Polónia Rios, director of the Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento, discuss the shift away from protectionism in Brazil's trade negotiations.