Research Library

The first of two issue briefs reviewing the impacts of AI on tax research, tax compliance, and tax policymaking.

With center-right President Emmanuel Macron facing off against extreme-right Marine Le Pen, what’s in store for the French presidential election next April? In a new brief, Baker Institute faculty scholar Julie Fette and William Tsai, Rice '24, examine the polls, platforms and possibilities.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts offers a starting point for compromise to revitalize the corporate income tax, fellows Jorge Barro and Joyce Beebe write in this issue brief.

Nonresident fellow Valentine M. Moghadam analyzes Tunisian women’s employment patterns and challenges and offers some policy recommendations.

This brief explores how a quirk in the measurement of women’s labor force participation and the demographic peculiarities of the Persian Gulf have resulted in the significant undercounting of female citizen labor in the Gulf Cooperation Council. I

This brief quantifies the potential exposure of key European countries to Russian gas price and supply manipulation, shows how Moscow has used energy as an instrument of coercive diplomacy since the early 1990s, and briefly assesses the impacts and future policy implications of Russian entities’ past use of the “energy weapon” in and near Europe. Although it has not been widely successful to date in the former Soviet zone, Russia's use of the energy weapon against Western European countries in various forms still constitutes a strategic threat that warrants close attention from policymakers in Washington and throughout Europe, writes fellow Gabriel Collins.

Since early 2014, Brazil has been in the midst of a political and economic crisis characterized by the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, steadily worsening economic conditions, and an investigation into widespread corruption within the government and Petrobras, the state-owned oil company. Experts from the Latin America Initiative analyze different aspects of the current situation in the issue briefs listed below.

Since the first quarter of 2014, Brazil has been living in crisis mode as the result of a severe economic crisis in conjunction with an investigation into widespread corruption that has penetrated the highest offices in the government. Although the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 did offer some hope for recovery, recent events demonstrate that Brazil's troubles are still ongoing. Contributing expert Sergio Fausto analyzes the main factors leading to this crisis and surveys the current economic and political situation.

This brief argues that, in contrast to the pessimism and ongoing recession in Latin America generated by the collapse of commodity prices, there are reasons for optimism in the area of external financing.