Author Julie Cohn traces historical trends and experiences with the U.S. electrical grid to help frame choices as more renewables are brought into the system.
Hurricane surge flooding is often overlooked in Houston, yet it poses a significant threat to the region in the form of property damage and a potentially massive loss of life. Rice faculty scholar Jim Blackburn outlines this problem and possible solutions to mitigate surge flooding.
Public finance fellow John Diamond and Rice faculty scholar George Zodrow analyze the short- and long-term economic effects of a federal carbon tax in the United States.
In this paper, Jim Blackburn examines some of the major issues currently facing the city of Houston — flooding, the climate and carbon, and food supply — and explores possible policy solutions to these challenges.
The author examines the impact of NAFTA renegotiations on established processes for trade disputes between investors and states; between states and states; and regarding unfair trade practices.
Faculty scholar Jim Blackburn proposes a series of realistic ideas that can substantially reduce misery and damage the next time a catastrophic storm like Harvey tears through the Houston-Galveston area.
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.
The economic and geopolitical implications of the United States’ nonconventional hydrocarbons revolution on energy markets throughout North America, including Mexico, and the possibilities for policy coordination in the region are explored in this paper.
This research paper examines the potential market for a system that would pay landowners to restore natural ecosystems, such as native prairies and oyster reefs, that protect the Gulf Coast from hurricane and severe storm damage.