Research Library

Cultural myths — and by extension, the suppositions they inspire — have played a major role in shaping Venezuela's relationship with and management of oil resources throughout much of the last 100 years, writes nonresident fellow Luis Pacheco. To achieve sustainable economic and social development, Venezuela must move beyond such beliefs and establish a new approach that is more attuned to current times.

To either close deals or resolve disputes, parties and courts must be able to attach a credible economic value to water that may still be underground in the aquifer. In this brief, fellow Gabriel Collins proposes a means of estimating this value that opens the door for a direct comparison of the implied price paid for groundwater in a land purchase transaction and the price paid for an explicit agreement to acquire only the groundwater estate beneath a tract.

The most likely future for NAFTA is neither continuity — that is off the table as per U.S. goals — nor a “modernized” agreement that the U.S. does not appear to want.

This issue brief examines how produced water recycling in Texas oilfields threatens landowners’ ability to earn revenue from selling frac water and disposal services, a more lucrative revenue stream compared to raising cattle.

The unfettered development of Houston's flood-prone areas undoubtedly magnified the tremendous damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, but zoning or other land use controls are unpopular on the Texas coast and are unlikely to be adopted as a result. With this in mind, the SSPEED Center at Rice University looked to innovation and the market system to find a creative solution to protect important natural, flood-prone areas from further development. 

The author assesses the impact of inequality in Latin America and the methods used to measure it. 

Regional air quality and health cost models are used to assess how reductions in soil nitric oxide (NO) emissions from the use of biochar could influence U.S. air quality and health costs.

The environmental and economic gains of biochar application in agricultural soils are the focus of this study.

Mexico is gradually laying the foundation for an oil and gas sector where private—along with some state-owned—international companies are taking central stage. However, authorities should not ignore the necessity of developing a domestic oil and gas sector, writes Adrian Duhalt in a post for the Baker Institute blog.

NAFTA has neither been the enormous success that its supporters believe, nor the disaster that its detractors claim. Renegotiating NAFTA — or even threatening to repeal it — is not a high-stakes proposition. The treaty simply does not possess the leverage to deliver a major boost or setback to the U.S. manufacturing sector.