Research Library

Using a public health approach to study drug-related murders on the U.S.-Mexico border, the authors conclude the region is experiencing a "violence epidemic."

Confusion over Texas' voter photo identification requirement potentially discouraged as many as 9 percent of registered voters from going to the polls in the November 2014 elections in the Latino-majority U.S. Congressional District 23 (CD-23), according to a new study.

This study examines the effects of lifting the 40-year-old U.S. crude export ban on crude pricing, energy security and energy sector investment. It includes a statistical analysis that explains what the relationship would be between the prices of crudes of different qualities in an unconstrained setting, which, according to author Ken Medlock, is important to providing a more accurate assessment of the impact of current U.S. policy.

What happens when Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer of oil, rejects its traditional market-balancing role? The job falls to American shale oil producers, which, initial data show, appear to be assuming the Saudi role.

This paper investigates how new potential and proposed regulations will influence the natural gas market in the United States in the coming decades, using the Rice World Gas Trade Model (RWGTM) to examine scenarios in which domestic natural gas development is stressed in a variety of ways. It considers a range of possible policy actions from the federal to the local level.

Is there an immigration crisis? Considering recent apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants in the context of what has happened over the last 10 years, the data are inconsistent with an immigration crisis — at least a generalized immigration crisis.

The Texas coast is one of the most ecologically productive and least appreciated natural assets of the United States. Unfortunately, this coastal resource is being destroyed by the various management actions (or inactions) of the state of Texas. It is not too late to reverse this destruction, but major policy shifts will be required to alter this trend.

North America is emerging as a virtual supply center of the international energy market, a development that has implications for the economic and geopolitical stature of the entire continent.

The tainted legacy of uranium mining on the coastal plains of Texas.

A comprehensive study of the reserve and production potential of the Barnett Shale integrates engineering, geology, and economics into a numerical model that allows for scenario testing based on several technical and economic parameters. Part 1 summarizes the geologic characterization, per-well decline analysis, and productivity tiering required to feed into the detailed modeling of future reserve and production forecasts. The conclusion (Part 2) examines full field economics and production and reserve forecasts.