Research Library

Approximately 25 percent of Texans say they lack confidence in understanding some of the most basic terminology about health insurance plans, according to a new report released March 8 by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Episcopal Health Foundation.

Just a decade ago, Texas’ venture capital investment was the third largest in the United States. Today, it has fallen to fourth and is set to slide to sixth, likely before 2016 is out.

Is the U.S. better off linking its money supply to a global commodity market or allowing an independent central bank to respond to economic conditions?

An investment strategy that generates financial returns while directing funds to entities providing goods and services to the poor is making headway in Latin America.

Trade and financial shocks have worsened Latin America’s economic prospects in the past year. Latin America — and South America in particular — are expected to perform poorly into 2016.

In this brief, the authors examine the link between oil and female labor force participation in the Middle East and North Africa.

Pedro da Motta Veiga, nonresident fellow for the Latin America Initiative, and Sandra Polónia Rios, director of the Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento, discuss the shift away from protectionism in Brazil's trade negotiations.

While the recent fiscal troubles in Greece have received much attention, the U.S. fiscal position is hardly comparable to that of Greece. However, the United States is experiencing, and will continue to experience, one of the fundamental economic costs of relatively large and persistent deficits.

As the BRICS hold their seventh summit in Ufa, Russia this week, international economics fellow Russell Green and Rice student Elisabeth Kalomeris offer advice on designing the framework for the organization’s New Development Bank.

This issue brief explores the relationship between the opening of Mexico’s energy sector and the future of the country’s automotive industry.