Research Library

This report, produced in collaboration with the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs, analyzes findings of a survey on Houstonians’ views on the candidates in the Houston mayoral race: http://bit.ly/2PavYL9.

Despite internal changes in how scientists are nominated for the Nobel Prize, there is still a substantial gender bias in prize recipients. Concrete policy changes are needed to ensure more diversity is reflected in the world’s most visible and prestigious scientific honor, write experts Kenneth M. Evans, Kirstin R.W. Matthews and Daniel Moralí. Baker Institute blog: http://bit.ly/2MDRDbW

Recent developments in the oil kingdoms of the Middle East demonstrate that rentier governments are engaging their citizens with energy policymaking in ways that do not follow rentier state theory, writes fellow Jim Krane.

Soda taxes have been proposed to help curb consumption and improve health outcomes. Fellow Joyce Beebe reviews recent attempts at taxing these beverages and provides practical policy solutions.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pledged to end corrupt practices in Mexico. Yet some of his other goals — such as returning to a more centralized government — might actually foster corruption. Postdoctoral fellow Jose Ivan Rodriguez-Sanchez explores this situation and analyzes the relationship between democracy and corruption in Mexico.

Indigenous natural resource wealth can provide a basis for robust economic development and broad macroeconomic development, especially when there is appropriate governance and robust legal and regulatory institutions. But a lack of institutional fortitude in many regions around the world has contributed to failure to translate resource wealth into broader macroeconomic wealth.

Read the Center for Health and Biosciences' biannual newsletter, which provides an overview of the publications, events, commentaries and other work of the center's fellows and scholars.

The Center for the United States and Mexico's quarterly newsletter provides the latest information on the center’s research and activities.