Research Library

Fellow Joyce Beebe analyzes how changes to the exclusion limits for estate taxes passed under the 2017 tax reform will impact taxpayers and state and federal governments.

McNair Center director Edward J. Egan discusses venture capital in testimony to House Small Business and Economic Development Committee.

Patterns of charitable contributions in the U.S. and the impact of recent tax changes to charitable giving are examined. 

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.

A study comparing the community benefit expenditures of two sets of Houston hospitals leads the authors to propose strategies that can better justify the tax exemptions the institutions enjoy.

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.

While academic and popular debates tend to focus on differential benefits and costs of trade across countries or industries, this brief highlights winners and losers at the level of individual firms. The authors demonstrate that preferential liberalization produces concentrated benefits among a relatively small number of very large and productive firms.

Nobody can ensure that the economic gamble underlying the 2013–2014 energy reform will achieve the desired or expected success. However, the author presents evidence demonstrating that Mexico has gradually been building the institutions that will be able to perform governmental operations with reasonable effectiveness.

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. 

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.