Research Library

Many migration-governance policies have been described by policymakers and politicians as deterrence. This linkage neutralizes the language around what are actually highly militarized, defense-based policies. This paper is intended as a first step toward improving conceptual clarity around the meaning of deterrence in the migration-governance context.  International Studies Review: http://bit.ly/2spZS4T

Reforms enacted by the Texas Legislature have allowed Texans to choose their own electricity provider since 2002. In this study, the authors analyze monthly residential billing data to assess the impact of competition on retail electricity prices.

The authors examine the role that government policy can play in accelerating production and use of biochar at commercial scale, such as providing commercial financial incentives, nonfinancial policy support and research and development funding. The article also includes broad recommendations for the development of policy that maximizes the net benefits of biochar adoption.

The United States appears less exposed to geopolitical risks affecting its oil supply than at any time since the early 1970s due to fracking, climate change and a more diverse energy supply, according to research by energy fellow Jim Krane and Kenneth B. Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies.

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.

Regional air quality and health cost models are used to assess how reductions in soil nitric oxide (NO) emissions from the use of biochar could influence U.S. air quality and health costs.

Higher costs for complex cancer surgery may be an indicator for worse, rather than better, quality of care, according to new research by the Baker Institute and the University of Texas MDAnderson Cancer Center. The study suggests that lower patient costs achieved by high-volume surgeons can be explained by the lower occurrence of “processes of care”— many of which are taken to avoid or treat complications that can occur during surgery, such as placing arterial lines or providing epidural anesthesia.

Health care providers add multiple processes to the care of complex cancer patients, believing they prevent and/or ameliorate complications. However, the relationship between these processes, complication remediation, and expenditures is unknown.

Errors in surgical care for cancer patients may seem infrequent, but the costs associated with them are extremely high.

This research discerns how municipal solid waste (MSW) composition influences the heating value and air pollution for the co-combustion of coal with MSW using five MSW composition scenarios, four of which were derived by a reduction of plastics, organics, paper, or a combination thereof, as compared to the national average MSW composition.