Research Library

Many argue that sales and excise taxes are regressive based on the strict relationship between annual income and taxes paid, but the burden of higher sales taxes may actually fall more heavily on households with higher lifetime incomes.

Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe discusses state and federal legislation aimed at granting states greater authority to collect sales taxes on remote online sales, as well as obstacles to those efforts.

To gain public support for Mexico’s energy reforms, the government promised a future of low gas prices. The author documents the fallout when gas prices instead shot up 20 percent. 

The high-growth, high-tech sector appears poised to dramatically grow. U.S. policy to support this sector could enhance and hasten its rise, or could destroy a new American dream.

With the Texas Legislature now considering several bills that would decrease penalties for marijuana possession and legalize the use of medical marijuana to treat a variety of conditions, authors William Martin and Katharine A. Neill present updated findings in this new issue brief that support the case for reforming marijuana policy in Texas.

Criminal extortion is on the rise in Mexico, particularly along the northern border states. Author Gary Hale shows how this trend has fueled government corruption, with officials implicitly or explicitly aiding organized crime groups as they extort businesses and citizens.

Using the Guadalupe County Groundwater Conservation District as a case study, this journal article examines the benefits of a three-dimensional water management system to better manage groundwater usage in Texas and outlines the process for implementing such a system within other groundwater conservation districts in the state.

How do dynamic analysis and dynamic scoring affect fiscal policymaking? Fellow John Diamond presents his views at a U.S. Joint Economic Committee hearing.

On Feb. 24, 2015, public finance fellow John Diamond testified on tax reform before U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

In 1972, a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, comprising establishment figures chosen mostly by President Richard Nixon himself, issued a report that declared that “neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety” and recommended that Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana and seek means other than prohibition to discourage use. President Nixon ignored the report and Congress declined to consider its recommendations, but during the 40-plus years since its publication, at least 37 states have acted to refashion a crazy-quilt collection of prohibitions, nearly always in the direction favored by the commission. The specifics vary by state, but most reform legislation has followed one of three formulas: decriminalization of marijuana possession, legalization of marijuana for medical use, or legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use. In this issue brief, authors Katharine Neill and William Martin examine the facts and fears surrounding each of these options.