Research Library

Today’s oil market contains not one, but two prisoner’s dilemmas: traditional OPEC+ members, policed by Saudi Arabia, and a new dilemma with U.S. shale producers, policed by their investors. This boosts the prize for cooperative behavior but also raises new risks. Energy fellow Mark Finley explains.

Gabriel Collins, the Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs, explains why Section 625 of the CLEAN Future Act — which aims to classify oilfield-produced water as a hazardous waste — would likely induce multi-system disruptions severe enough to prevent the act from achieving its climate, energy, environmental, and social objectives.

With the rise of the gig economy has come an increase in concerns about tax compliance. This blog post reviews two recent changes to tax reporting rules for the sharing economy sector — the comeback of Form 1099-NEC and a reduction in the reporting threshold of Form 1099-K — and their implications for tax administration and reporting.

Why have consumer credit scores gone up during the pandemic?  In this brief, public finance fellow Joyce Beebe discusses the disconnect between credit scores and other economic indicators, and the public policies behind the rising scores.

The May 3 subway collapse in Mexico City highlights the ongoing institutional weakness and corruption of the current administration, with deadly results for the country’s citizens. Read more at the Baker Institute Blog.

Nonresident fellow Todd Moss testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights on the importance of defeating energy poverty in Africa and ensuring that African countries get fair treatment in climate policy.

President Biden has an opportunity, the author argues, to resurrect the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program and provide a pathway to legal status for millions of undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. This report explores the potential of the DAPA program to impact immigrant families and policy avenues toward its passage.

This brief examines the four economic pillars that are often credited with bolstering Mexico’s economy in 2019 and 2020 to determine how quickly the nation's economy will bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which became law in mid-March, left out the mandate to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, but it did lead to an open policy discussion about current minimum wage standards. In a post for the Baker Institute Blog, public finance fellow Joyce Beebe considers some of the pros and cons of increasing the minimum wage and possible future developments.

With the rise of online trading and over 10 million new retail brokerage accounts added in 2020, are new traders ready for the associated capital gains tax rules? Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe explains some key tax considerations on the Baker Institute Blog: bit.ly/3vDeXfD