Research Library

Six years after Hurricane Harvey deluged the Texas Gulf Coast, how exposed are Houston and Harris County to flooding risk? Jim Blackburn and Jennifer Borski examine key challenges and changes needed going forward.

Despite recent claims that “free trade is dead,” fellow Simon Lester explains that America was never close to anything resembling free trade in the first place. Instead, current U.S. trade policy, just like past policy, reflects a messy mix of free market and industrial policy views.

Under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico is squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to encourage significant new foreign investment. His successor will need to reverse course, writes David A. Gantz, the Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics.

This brief reviews federal and Texas specific policies and regulation to support the integration of non-medical services into health care payment systems.

Precision psychiatry promises to more accurately diagnose and treat patients. Brain health experts call for European researchers, policymakers and industry to work together to advance the field and give Europe a competitive edge.

Abu Dhabi has shown increasing discomfort with OPEC’s actions in recent years. Do diverging interests spell departure? Fellows Jim Krane, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen and Mark Finley weigh the risks and opportunities of an OPEC exit by the UAE.

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.

The food environment currently dominated by the industrialized food industry is undermining both brain health and our environment.

There is a growing global movement among economic, public policy and academic communities questioning the appropriateness of gross domestic product (GDP), and specifically its growth, as an indicator of progress. Despite the broad range of indices and dashboards that have been developed to challenge it, GDP remains entrenched as the essential indicator of national prosperity, despite its purpose being to measure the size and performance of the economy.

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.