Research Library

Houston and Harris County area law enforcement leaders weigh in on the need for drug policy reforms in the United States.

The most likely future for NAFTA is neither continuity — that is off the table as per U.S. goals — nor a “modernized” agreement that the U.S. does not appear to want.

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.

Most analysis of NAFTA begins by citing the huge increase in bilateral trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico since 1993. U.S.-Mexico trade—exports plus imports—has grown three and a half times faster than U.S. GDP since NAFTA began in 1994. If NAFTA were solely responsible for that trade, renegotiating it on more favorable terms might have big payoffs. However, there are seven problems with thinking NAFTA has mattered or can matter very much.

Is President Trump's April 2017 executive order calling for a review of the H-1B visa program bad news for foreign workers?

The relationship between Mexico and Texas is in dire need of reassessment, given the chasm between the reality of the countries’ economic and cultural relationship and the political rhetoric that surrounds it.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement offers an opportunity to deepen U.S.-Mexico economic ties without reopening the still contentious North American Free Trade Agreement for negotiation. It may also serve as a vehicle for advancing the current Mexican government’s economic reform agenda. The leaders of the U.S. and Mexico believe that the TPP will bolster domestic economic growth.

Academic mobility is critical for robust collaborations in education, research and innovation between the U.S. and Mexico. Governments in both countries, in cooperation with nongovernmental actors, should provide a framework to develop mechanisms that generate and sustain a meaningful exchange of students, faculty, and staff from educational institutions at all levels of post-secondary education.