Research Library

This working paper constructs a new general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy that is better able to analyze energy and gross receipts taxes than previous models.

This issue brief examines the signals conveyed by Mexico's 2014 energy reforms, and analyzes the limitations in law, institutional design and policy that may delay, if not derail, the reforms' success.

This issue brief identifies the four main reforms that the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government must undertake to revive the manufacturing industry in India.

Speaking from the historic steps of Old North on the Georgetown University campus on June 25, 2013, President Obama unveiled a detailed plan to address the causes and impacts of climate change. In his words, the president promised, “I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.” Not quite a year later on June 6, 2014, Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, responded by proposing “state-specific rate-based goals for carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, as well as guidelines for states to follow in developing plans to achieve the state-specific goals.”

Talk of a “pivot to Asia” that supposedly would mark President Obama’s second term is “misplaced and even simplistic,” writes fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. In a globalized world, “key U.S. relationships with strategic and commercial partners … cannot be addressed in isolation from one another. The convergence of U.S. ties and Asian ties with the Middle East is a case in point highlights how regions and issues are interconnected as never before.”

Fossil fuel subsidies have allowed energy exporting countries to distribute resource revenue, bolstering legitimacy for governments, many of which are not democratically elected. But subsidy benefits are dwarfed by the harmful consequences of encouraging uneconomic use of energy. Now, with consumption posing a threat to long-term exports, governments face a heightened need to raise prices that have come to be viewed as entitlements. While reforms of state benefits are notoriously politically dangerous, previous experience shows that subsidies can be rolled back without undermining government legitimacy — even in autocratic settings — given proper preparation.

A proposed inflation targeting (IT) approach to monetary policy has generated vigorous debate in India, where inflation has not dropped much below 10 percent for the past eight years.

A policy report by Aynne Kokas, Baker Institute fellow in Chinese media, that recommends steps to further open media markets in China.

Energy experts from government, industry and academia investigate influences on oil and gas investments, as well as future directions for global commodity pricing.

Under this study, the Baker Institute will embark on a comprehensive study on the interaction of the oil investment cycle and the general business cycle, including consideration of how the global economy and patterns of industry capital investment are influenced by oil price shocks.