Research Library

As Congress resumes work this spring on a bill granting Trade Promotion Authority to President Obama for completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, many members have sought inclusion of a chapter on currency manipulation. Currency manipulation is a legitimate concern. However, countermeasures require clear, objective identification of currency manipulation. Both the IMF and the U.S. Treasury Department have mandates to identify currency manipulation, yet neither has done so in the past 20 years. If it can be done, why has it not happened more often? In this issue brief, Russell Green, Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics, reviews the difficulties of operationalizing a currency manipulation chapter and argues that the difficulty of identifying currency manipulation suggests serious political obstacles to implementation.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is starting her second term in office facing economic and political problems that feed into each other. These problems can be attributed to a large extent to mistakes her administration made during her first term. Rousseff’s macroeconomic policy proved to be inconsistent, and the choices she made in some key economic sectors, especially energy, were demonstrably disastrous. Rousseff now faces the enormous challenge of reconciling the leftwing populism that led her to victory with the inescapable need to regain the trust of the most dynamic sectors of Brazilian society, including the private sector.

In 1972, a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, comprising establishment figures chosen mostly by President Richard Nixon himself, issued a report that declared that “neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety” and recommended that Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana and seek means other than prohibition to discourage use. President Nixon ignored the report and Congress declined to consider its recommendations, but during the 40-plus years since its publication, at least 37 states have acted to refashion a crazy-quilt collection of prohibitions, nearly always in the direction favored by the commission. The specifics vary by state, but most reform legislation has followed one of three formulas: decriminalization of marijuana possession, legalization of marijuana for medical use, or legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use. In this issue brief, authors Katharine Neill and William Martin examine the facts and fears surrounding each of these options.

Although there are enormous potential benefits for Mexico's energy sector in the future, there are also important challenges the country must overcome to fully realize its energy potential. One of them has to do with the land ownership and land use regime in Mexico. As the legislative debate on the new Ley de Petróleos and the Ley de la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (Petroleum Act and Federal Electric Utility Act) proceeded in the summer of 2014, the Mexican Congress anticipated potential land-related conflicts associated with exploration and production activities related to hydrocarbons and new energy-related infrastructure projects. These potential conflicts stem from the fact that all of these projects will necessarily require the right of way to access and work on the resources in the subsoil of privately owned as well as on so-called “socially owned” lands in regions targeted for energy development. Thus, the Mexican Congress sought to avoid land-related conflicts by including language related to land ownership and use in the new energy legislation. The legislation, however, may not be able to prevent such conflicts.

The cost of monthly premiums for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act can vary hundreds of dollars depending on a Texan’s income and the level of coverage chosen, according to a report released Sept. 23.

With the recent approval of Mexico's energy reform and the current enthusiasm of South American governments to attract foreign investment in oil, one might be tempted to conclude that the tide of resource nationalism is receding in the region. Nevertheless, the cycles of investment and expropriation that have characterized the oil sector in Latin America are unlikely to go away.

Mexico must address two key questions in order to realize the promise of greater employment opportunities: Does the country’s current workforce have the needed skills to adequately respond to increases in production, and is the country allocating the necessary resources to respond to the demand for future skills? This issue brief focuses on education's role in reducing the workforce skills gap that Mexico will face as the energy sector expands.

The BRICS clearly want something tangible to demonstrate their global prominence and the power of non-Western values. Russell Green examines the critical issues that must be resolved before the BRICS bank can open its doors.

Half of Texans who are eligible for premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and who looked for health plans in the ACA's Health Insurance Marketplace said cost was the main reason they didn’t enroll in a plan. That’s just one of the findings in a report released today by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Episcopal Health Foundation. The report specifically looked at lower- to middle-income families in Texas who don’t have access to health insurance through an employer and who earn too much to qualify for public programs. That group includes approximately 2 million uninsured Texans and is a key target population of the ACA. The report found that virtually all of the target population knew about the ACA Marketplace and the available subsidies for health insurance premiums. In addition, the report found that one-third of those aware of the marketplace looked for information on health insurance plans. Another one-third planned to look for that information in the future. However, many Texans who looked for plans in the ACA Marketplace still didn’t enroll in a health insurance plan. The report found half of those who did not enroll said costs were the main reason – either costs were too high or they didn’t have enough money to enroll at that time. The report is the sixth in a series on the implementation of the ACA in Texas. It was co-authored by Elena Marks, the president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation and a health policy scholar at the Baker Institute, and Vivian Ho, the chair in health economics at the Baker Institute, a professor of economics at Rice and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “The affordability of Health Insurance Marketplace plans, even with subsidies, has been an open question from the outset,” Marks said. “Perceptions about affordability may be preventing some Texans from enrolling in a plan. The intense, politically charged dialogue around the ACA in the state may have created misconceptions about the costs.” Uninsured Texans may also think health coverage is too expensive because the cost is new to them, the report found. Even with subsidies, some families still would pay some amount for coverage – an added expense, regardless of the amount, not previously part of the family budget. Also, the report found there’s evidence many uninsured don’t value health insurance or believe they can still use charity care programs that offer free or discounted medical care on a pay-as-you-go basis. As the report showed, most of the uninsured knew about the ACA Marketplace and two-thirds looked, or planned to look, for information on health insurance plans. However, the report also discovered 29 percent not only hadn’t looked for marketplace information, they also didn’t plan to look for information in the future. “Many of those who didn’t buy insurance will pay a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of income on their 2014 tax return,” Ho said. “That penalty rises to $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016, which will likely lead to more people enrolling in coming years.” The Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS)-Texas report is based on a national project that provides timely information on implementation issues under the Affordable Care Act and changes in health insurance coverage and related health outcomes. The Episcopal Health Foundation and Baker Institute are partnering to fund studies of and report on key factors about Texans obtained from an expanded representative sample of Texas residents. Today's report contains responses from 1,595 Texans in September 2013 and 1,538 in March 2014. The survey was developed by the Urban Institute, conducted by the company GfK and jointly funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Urban Institute. The analyses and conclusions based on HRMS-Texas are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Urban Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the Ford Foundation.

On May 23, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a series of bills to implement constitutional changes to the country’s political and electoral processes. The reforms bring some of the most dynamic shifts to Mexican politics since the 1990s, including replacing the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) with the National Electoral Institute (INE). The new INE and the measures behind it now strive to replicate the IFE’s success in the country's states and municipalities.