Research Library

This report examines how and why corporations buy back shares and whether an excise tax on share buybacks is efficient.

Earlier this year, the Middle East Energy Roundtable brought together industry leaders and experts to discuss the trends shaping the Gulf’s energy transition politics. The Baker Institute’s Osamah Alsayegh, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Jim Krane and Ana Martín Gil summarize the key findings in this report.

Nonresident scholar Richard Kilroy explores how Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to move the Guardia Nacional — an institution created to protect public safety — under the control of Mexico’s military could have dire consequences for civil-military relations and U.S.-Mexico security relations.

Social media influencers can earn hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars each year. But how do they get taxed? In this issue brief, public finance fellow Joyce Beebe explains what tax rules apply to influencers and how tax authorities can improve tax compliance.

Truth-in-taxation measures, which are intended to serve taxpayers, have failed to constrain the property tax burden in Texas, write Jennifer Rabb and Lebena Varghese of the McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. They argue that it is incumbent upon the government to make tax rate notices clear, relevant and above all truthful.

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.

Expanding current non-immigrant work permit categories through minimal adjustments is a way to move forward on immigration reform — one that recognizes the undocumented community for its valuable contributions, writes expert Catherine Glazer in a new policy brief for the Center for the United States and Mexico.

Texas has long been an economic leader, but the state lags critically in a major area: health. A new report by M.D. candidate Kushal T. Kadakia and nonresident scholar Anaeze C. Offodile II offers a road map for improving Texas’ health rankings by 10 spots in 10 years.