Research Library

Saudi Arabia’s massive hydrocarbon endowment and ownership of Islamic holy sites have created a unique political economy. In this research paper, energy fellow Jim Krane explores established policy practices and assesses Saudi Arabia’s emerging strategy for future participation in the oil business.

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This report is part of a series examining the…

The authors show that border barriers can have unintended but important biological consequences for biodiversity by, for instance, inducing changes to the environment and reducing genetic diversity.

An exploratory study of Houston physicians revealed a general lack of awareness about the presence of Chagas disease in Texas. The results suggest the need to better educate health professionals on the diagnosis and timely treatment of Chagas patients in the region.

In separate papers, two Baker Institute fellows — one Palestinian, the other Israeli — provide their perspectives on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The authors examine a unique and anonymized dataset of complaints about government corruption in an urban Mexico district. The trends they found are transferable to other urban districts across the country and Latin America, they write, and may help anticorruption agencies in Mexico and beyond direct their efforts. https://doi.org/10.25613/cqgc-xv79.

Measuring the costs of corruption around the world is challenging due to varying definitions of corruption, the invisibility of many corrupt acts, and the subjectivity of perceptions. In this research paper, postdoctoral research fellow Jose I. Rodriguez-Sanchez explores the difficulties of measuring corruption in Mexico.

This report examines the societal and economic benefits of investing in children’s early brain development. It also assesses public child care, preschool, home-visiting and parenting education programs in Texas and makes recommendations for possible reforms.

In this paper for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, fellows Jorge Barro and John W. Diamond examine the history behind Texas’ property tax system, recent attempts to reduce the growing magnitude of the property tax burden, and the economic effects of two options for eliminating the school maintenance and operations (M&O) property tax: https://bit.ly/2zIZRZy 

This paper reviews the membership, activities, and impact of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in the past four presidential administrations, and provides recommendations for PCAST to continue advising the president and generating science policy in the future.