Research Library

The unemployment insurance (UI) system is facing a perfect storm of problems: the pandemic has led to a surge in jobless claims, which is severely straining state UI trusts that weren't fully prepared for a recession. This report reviews the UI system and potential measures to mitigate challenges current downturn.

Public finance fellow Jorge Barro examines the Federal Reserve’s aggressive financial market response to the Covid-19 pandemic and asserts that without its use of unconventional policy tools, adverse outcomes could have spread to other areas of the economy, disproportionately impacting low-income households.

This policy report explains how specific tools of economic statecraft can be applied to reduce risks caused by dependence on People’s Republic of China-dominated supply chains for critical goods. It offers foundational building blocks for the formulation and implementation of a larger strategy to reduce American vulnerabilities to China.

The author analyzes the challenges Mexico’s 2013 energy reforms pose to the current administration, as well as the limitations the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement imposes on changes in Mexico’s energy policies.

This author examines the main characteristics of Mexican immigrant-owned small and medium-sized businesses established in the United States, and the opportunities and challenges they face.

By Paul Lagunes, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Xiaoxuan Yang, Columbia University; and Andrés Castro, Columbia University. Corruption is a persistent problem throughout Latin America. Higher rates of perceived corruption are associated with lower levels of economic welfare and direct foreign investment, write the authors.

Fellow Joyce Beebe examines recent policies and proposals that aim to simplify the federal student loan process.

This report analyzes the comparable transactions method for valuing groundwater, which involves examining transactions for groundwater purchases or sales to gather pricing information, and explores how this method can be applied to groundwater valuations in Texas.