Research Library

In this report, author David Gantz continues his series on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by discussing some of the changes adopted from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, including those relating to state-owned enterprises and special sectoral standards, which may have a major impact on North American trade.

Using a framework based on vulnerability, risk and offsets provides valuable insights for evaluating the security of an energy system in transition, writes energy fellow Mark Finley.

Soda taxes have been proposed to help curb consumption and improve health outcomes. Fellow Joyce Beebe reviews recent attempts at taxing these beverages and provides practical policy solutions.

This report analyzes political and religious authority in Saudi Arabia under the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The number of energy-related social conflicts in Mexico has risen dramatically over the last several years. The authors review the reasons for these conflicts and the social impact assessments that should be required for firms developing energy projects in Mexico.

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.

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.

This paper summarizes the presentations and discussions at May 14, 2015, workshop on water-energy interdependence and related issues. The Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies (CES) and the Texas A&M University Nexus Research Group convened the event.

The changing regional geopolitics of the Middle East have created new opportunities for the Gulf states to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict resolution after the Arab Spring. This policy report examines the potential role that the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — might play in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. It presents policy recommendations on how the Gulf states can engage with regional and international partners and build upon the greater space for action as the shifting parameters of Middle East politics create new regional pathways for action and cooperation.