Research Library

The authors examine the recent attacks on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations to shed light on the current state of U.S.-Gulf strategic relations and the potential directions of its evolution in coming years.

Fellow Jorge Barro studies U.S. capital markets to provide a long-term outlook on the macroeconomic consequences of unbalanced debt growth.

The recent rise in opioid-related overdose deaths is part of a larger trend in drug use that started over 40 years ago, writes Katharine Neill Harris, the Alfred C. Glassell, III, Fellow in Drug Policy.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts offers a starting point for compromise to revitalize the corporate income tax, fellows Jorge Barro and Joyce Beebe write in this issue brief.

In June 2018, Saudi Arabia finally put an end to its legal ban on women driving, opening the way for millions of new drivers to navigate across a country three times bigger than Texas. While the long-overdue policy shift provides relief to women who lacked freedom of mobility, the onset of so many new drivers has enormous consequences for transportation and the energy sector, as well as labor market participation and public health.

This issue brief presents the results of a dynamic model similar in nature to the macroeconomic models used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation in evaluating the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The model shows a modest decline in wealth inequality due to the corporate tax cuts in the TCJA.

Many argue that sales and excise taxes are regressive based on the strict relationship between annual income and taxes paid, but the burden of higher sales taxes may actually fall more heavily on households with higher lifetime incomes.

With the Texas Legislature now considering several bills that would decrease penalties for marijuana possession and legalize the use of medical marijuana to treat a variety of conditions, authors William Martin and Katharine A. Neill present updated findings in this new issue brief that support the case for reforming marijuana policy in Texas.

The author analyzes the major claims and implications of the Surgeon General's report "Facing Addiction in America," and proposes additional drug policy considerations for addressing substance use disorders.

Using charts, figures and graphs of this survey data originally created by former career intelligence analyst Brian C. Bennett and updated by the Drug Policy Program, this issue brief offers an overview of drug use trends in America over the last four decades. The brief is part of a larger online project chronicling the pattern of the use and abuse of individual drugs over (in most cases) more than 40 years.