Research Library

Despite being one of the largest and most dynamic sectors of the U.S. economy, the construction industry faces a severe labor shortage due to an aging workforce, lower birth rates, and reduced immigration. This new report from the Center for the U.S and Mexico offers recommendations to address the industry’s needs, including authorizing more migrant workers through limited-term visas and promoting construction skills and careers to young people.

Science and technology policy usually takes a back seat to issues such as immigration, the economy, and health care during election season. What’s changed for 2024?

Reproductive health care, which encompasses preventative screenings, family planning, and contraceptive access, is becoming increasingly inaccessible in Texas due to restrictive abortion policies. A new brief by nonresident fellow McClain Sampson and coauthor Priscilla Kennedy examines how these policies exacerbate health disparities across the state and suggests ways to make comprehensive reproductive care more accessible to Texans.

To restore America’s leadership in science, the next presidential administration must prioritize investment in science and technology as key to economic progress, national security, and a healthy society. This will require a coordinated interagency national plan and the support of both political parties.

While Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump differ on clean energy policy, neither candidate has yet to offer a comprehensive energy plan. In a new commentary featured in The Conversation, Daniel S. Cohan examines how legislation, regulations, and trade policy will guide either administration’s approach to the energy transition.

Now is the time to enact corporate income tax reform that moves the U.S. toward a more neutral business tax system. Here’s why expensing and changes in interest deductions plus strengthening provisions designed to reduce income shifting should be part of any reform package.

The U.S. is facing an ongoing labor shortage that is hampering its economic growth and contributing to inflationary pressures. Allowing more foreign-born workers into the U.S. in an orderly and legal manner is an effective way to ease this shortage.

Nearshoring — the outsourcing of production to another country — would increase manufacturing and further economic development across U.S.-Mexico border areas, but it also raises significant questions about environmental impacts and, ultimately, environmental justice. Both governments should begin drafting and implementing effective transboundary policies that incentivize companies to protect local communities and fragile border ecosystems from a manufacturing surge, writes research scholar Ivonne Cruz.

Low levels of cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico are making it impossible to resolve mutual security concerns, such as drug and human trafficking, cross border gunrunning, and money laundering. Both countries need to transcend their mutual suspicions to find common ground for cooperation to resolve binational security issues with satisfactory solutions, write Tony Payan and Rodrigo Montes de Oca.

To ensure U.S. technological and economic competitiveness, America’s new administration must work with Congress to enact appropriations for basic research, STEM education, and workforce development at a level consistent with the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act’s authorizations.