Six years after Hurricane Harvey deluged the Texas Gulf Coast, how exposed are Houston and Harris County to flooding risk? Jim Blackburn and Jennifer Borski examine key challenges and changes needed going forward.
Confusion over the Texas' voter I.D. law may have kept some people from casting a ballot in the 2016 elections, even though most could have complied, according to a study led by political science fellow Mark Jones. Latino voters were affected most significantly.
Mark P. Jones, Renee Cross, Jim GranatoApril 10, 2017
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Texas voter ID law, ruling that it violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision cites a 2015 study by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and the University of Houston Hobby Center for Public Policy.
Mark P. Jones, Jim Granato, Renee CrossJuly 20, 2016
Boko Haram may be reaching its bitter end in Nigeria as the the country's military, with the support of Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, plans a massive ground invasion of the insurgents’ long-controlled safe zone, the Sambisa Forest. Outgoing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has refused the offer of the United Nations to send troops, expressing confidence in the regional Multinational Joint Task Force's (MNJTF) ability to rout Boko Haram before the May 29 handover to the new president. However, Boko Haram remains deadly as long as sharia is the precondition for political and economic gains to the Muslim north.
Equity capital flows into microfinance have been increasing for many years. Despite this growth, the vast majority of equity investments are still made in the form of private placements, as there are only three publicly traded microfinance institutions. The difficulty in accessing private data and the scarcity of publicly listed entities have limited the scope of the market research available to equity investors in microfinance institutions.