Research Library

Why does Texas have its own power grid, and how can its history inform the future of electric power in the state? Nonresident scholar Julie Cohn looks beyond the mythology surrounding the standalone Texas grid and finds that reliability and economics — not politics — were the major factors leading to isolation.

Without urgent action, the impact of China’s water shortages will ripple across the globe and dramatically perturb global markets for food, energy and industrial goods, write fellow Gabriel Collins and co-author Gopal Reddy.

Among the U.S. citizens migrating to Mexico in recent years are an unknown number of Americans who married Mexican citizens and were co-deported or departed voluntarily with their undocumented spouses, the authors report. Without improved consular services and a diaspora policy that anticipates the likely return of these Americans in the future, the authors worry that the United States risks re-inheriting a sizable U.S. population that may well require critical government services to reintegrate after a prolonged period abroad.

High-skilled immigrants from emerging markets are playing an increasingly important role in the global knowledge economy, writes nonresident scholar Elizabeth Salamanca Pacheco. In this paper, Salamanca Pacheco explains how high-skilled migrants from Mexico are well positioned to alleviate a STEM talent shortage in the U.S. and stimulate innovation in their native country.

David A. Gantz, the Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics, analyzes a wide range of factors — including the U.S.-China trade war, the entry into force of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the COVID-19 pandemic — that are all contributing to the pressure on the U.S. to decouple from China and to shift supply chains back to North America.

The authors look at the key drivers impacting national security and defense relations between the United States and Mexico and offer four possible scenarios for the future, along with policy recommendations to support the avoidance of conflict.

The author gives an overview of the USMCA's implications for Mexico, finding that while challenges remain for the U.S.-Mexico relationship, the possibility of the trade agreement going into effect by 2020 should greatly reduce uncertainties about the future of North American trade.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco has cultivated the country’s image as a bastion of moderate Islam and of himself as a strategic partner, but to what extent does his international reputation correspond to public opinion in Morocco? In this paper, the author evaluates the king’s domestic standing as part of a larger Baker Institute study on religious authority in the Middle East.

The author examines the impact of NAFTA renegotiations on established processes for trade disputes between investors and states; between states and states; and regarding unfair trade practices.

Nobody can ensure that the economic gamble underlying the 2013–2014 energy reform will achieve the desired or expected success. However, the author presents evidence demonstrating that Mexico has gradually been building the institutions that will be able to perform governmental operations with reasonable effectiveness.