Research Library

More Texans found talking to the call center more helpful than using healthcare.gov to get information or enroll for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new study released by the Baker Institute Health Policy Forum and the Episcopal Health Foundation.

The cost of monthly premiums for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act can vary hundreds of dollars depending on a Texan’s income and the level of coverage chosen, according to a report released Sept. 23.

Public finance fellow John Diamond recently testified before the Texas House Ways and Means Committee on dynamic scoring and analysis use in tax policy.

North America is emerging as a virtual supply center of the international energy market, a development that has implications for the economic and geopolitical stature of the entire continent.

The percentage of Texans without health insurance dropped after the first enrollment period of the Affordable Care Act, according to a report released Sept. 3.

Mexico must address two key questions in order to realize the promise of greater employment opportunities: Does the country’s current workforce have the needed skills to adequately respond to increases in production, and is the country allocating the necessary resources to respond to the demand for future skills? This issue brief focuses on education's role in reducing the workforce skills gap that Mexico will face as the energy sector expands.

Technological progress in the exploration and production of oil and gas during the 2000s has led to a boom in upstream investment and has increased the domestic supply of fossil fuels. It is unknown, however, how many jobs this boom has created. Using time-series methods at the national level and dynamic panel methods at the state level to understand how the increase in exploration and production activity has impacted employment, this paper finds robust statistical support for the hypothesis that changes in drilling for oil and gas as captured by rig counts do, in fact, have an economically meaningful and positive impact on employment.

Economic growth in recent years has not translated to improvements in the quality of life for most Peruvians. On the contrary, it has shed light on the inaccessibility of basic needs such as education, health care, employment, better remuneration, and implementation of projects that generate resources or jobs, as well as environmental concerns related to the extractive activities in the nation. In addition to these concerns, the high rate of corruption and urban insecurity generates a perception of uncertainty that if not properly addressed could exacerbate crisis situations in different regions of the country.

Public finance fellow John Diamond analyzed the proposed Tax Reform Act of 2014 in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures on July 30, 2014.