Research Library

Days after Peru's Congress nearly impeached the country's president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, he pardoned his authoritarian predecessor, Alberto Fujimoro.

At least four states are currently considering a gross receipts tax (GRT) to improve revenues, yet Texas legislators have made attempts to repeal its franchise tax, a form of the GRT. Fellow Joyce Beebe examines this apparent conflict.

A scandal that involves high-ranking officials from Costa Rica's three branches of government is testing the country's reputation for democratic stability. 

Many argue that sales and excise taxes are regressive based on the strict relationship between annual income and taxes paid, but the burden of higher sales taxes may actually fall more heavily on households with higher lifetime incomes.

While academic and popular debates tend to focus on differential benefits and costs of trade across countries or industries, this brief highlights winners and losers at the level of individual firms. The authors demonstrate that preferential liberalization produces concentrated benefits among a relatively small number of very large and productive firms.

Nobody can ensure that the economic gamble underlying the 2013–2014 energy reform will achieve the desired or expected success. However, the author presents evidence demonstrating that Mexico has gradually been building the institutions that will be able to perform governmental operations with reasonable effectiveness.

This issue brief examines how produced water recycling in Texas oilfields threatens landowners’ ability to earn revenue from selling frac water and disposal services, a more lucrative revenue stream compared to raising cattle.

As China’s demand for light oil products continues to drive incremental consumption growth, it is becoming apparent that commodities framed as “oil products” are increasingly not actually made from crude oil. Fellow Gabriel Collins explores the possible ramifications of this situation in this issue brief. He writes that oil producers — whether in Riyadh, Moscow or the Permian Basin — should take stock of how China’s growing use of “oil products” that do not actually come from crude oil may translate into effective reductions in demand and prices for the crude oil they produce.

Faculty scholar Jim Blackburn proposes a series of realistic ideas that can substantially reduce misery and damage the next time a catastrophic storm like Harvey tears through the Houston-Galveston area. 

Aside from the massive cost of constructing a physical barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, factors such as private and tribal land ownership and the impact on the environment must be taken into account.