Research Library

A study of U.S. hospitals acquired by private equity firms found improved financial performance — and that patient throughput (or the process of admitting, treating and discharging patients) increased while staffing decreased.

The authors respond to a critique of their prior article, elaborating on how "a switch from fossil fuel systems to renewables involves sharp declines in risk and mining."

An emerging perspective in U.S. public discourse claims that a buildout of renewable electricity would exacerbate supply risks, mining intensity, and import dependence. This ScienceDirect article from fellow Jim Krane and graduate student Robert Idel contends the opposite is true, demonstrating how transitioning to renewables hugely reduces the materials, mining and political risk involved compared to coal.

For petrostates like Saudi Arabia, new tactics and strategies will be needed to recapture the strategic interest of global powers, and to cope with the transition away from fossil fuels. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Fall 2020.

The global financial cost of Covid-19 could top $15 trillion. But governments could prevent future pandemics by investing as little as $22 billion a year in programs to curb wildlife trafficking and stem the destruction of tropical forests, according to an international team of scientists including Baker Institute Faculty Scholar Ted Loch-Temzelides.

The policy and regulatory frameworks for hydraulic fracturing in Texas and Spain are examined to determine the possible trade-offs between water security and energy security. Environmental Science & Policy: https://bit.ly/2NMr9WY.

The author reviews some of the regulatory, financial and planning challenges for electricity transmission. Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy symposium: http://bit.ly/2KMRUvf.

Ken Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies, explores how the Trump administration’s approach to international trade could impact energy markets in a special issue of the IEEJ Energy Journal.

The winner’s curse — overestimating the value of an asset and therefore overpaying — is often associated with acquisitions of publicly-traded firms but not with private acquisitions. Using an event study methodology for over 22,000 private acquisitions of U.S. firms between 1985 and 2015, the authors examine a possible winner’s curse for such acquisitions, testing variables to determine what characteristics make a private company more likely to overestimate the asset's value.

Using the Guadalupe County Groundwater Conservation District as a case study, this journal article examines the benefits of a three-dimensional water management system to better manage groundwater usage in Texas and outlines the process for implementing such a system within other groundwater conservation districts in the state.