Research Library

In late July, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar delivered a bleak economic outlook for the state’s economy: the amount of general revenue funds available for the current biennium is expected to be $11.5 billion less than originally estimated. Should the state tap into its rainy day fund to offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and facilitate a stable recovery?

A working group led by the Baker Institute has developed an innovative measurement-based standard — “BCarbon” — for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil as organic carbon. BCarbon is a scalable soil carbon storage standard designed to work for landowners and soil carbon storage buyers. The proposed standard allows landowners to monetize soil carbon storage as a property right.

A decision by a Japanese streaming company to suspend operations in China is the latest iteration in China’s war for influence over soft power cultural products from other countries. Even more surprising, it ended with a loss for China.

Energy fellow Mark Finley assesses the future of international oil companies given the tremendous pressure they've experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Using a football analogy, he suggests that although business leaders are rightly focused on winning the game, they can’t ignore the condition of the playing field.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry faces increasing pressure to do more to achieve climate change objectives. A new product—Green LNG—could help ensure that natural gas keeps its role in the energy transition, if the LNG industry can convert Green LNG into a uniform, tradable commodity, write the authors.

Analysis of Federal Reserve survey data released in September 2020 shows that U.S. wealth inequality has declined for the first time in 30 years.

Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe reviews the changing definition of employment, specifically looking at the current policy measures for providing benefits and protections to workers in the sharing economy. She also discusses concerns regarding workplace automation.

Immigration policy will look very different in a Trump or Joe Biden presidency. This brief summarizes changes that have occurred under the Trump administration so far and examines the repercussions of the November election on four aspects of immigration policy.

This paper presents a stochastic bilevel disjunctive program for transmission investment planning. Published in Networks and Spatial Economics -- A Journal of Infrastructure Modeling and Computation.

Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe discusses the tax policy considerations of an increasingly mobile workforce, including state tax and regulatory issues, reimbursement for home office expenses and workplace benefits.