Research Library

In this report, author David Gantz continues his series on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by discussing some of the changes adopted from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, including those relating to state-owned enterprises and special sectoral standards, which may have a major impact on North American trade.

Mexico's government has eliminated almost all conditions (health checkups, school attendance for children) previously attached to cash transfers for the poor. The author considers the impact of the antipoverty overhaul.

In late November, Hong Kong's high court ruled that a government ban on face masks was unconstitutional. This brief analyzes Beijing's subsequent response that, if enforced, may signal the extension of unchecked central dictatorship over Hong Kong’s political apparatus.

Using a framework based on vulnerability, risk and offsets provides valuable insights for evaluating the security of an energy system in transition, writes energy fellow Mark Finley.

Using findings from Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, the author analyzes public perceptions of anticorruption efforts during the López Obrador administration.

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.

This report analyzes political and religious authority in Saudi Arabia under the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The author analyzes the challenges Mexico’s 2013 energy reforms pose to the current administration, as well as the limitations the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement imposes on changes in Mexico’s energy policies.

David Buckley offers brief reflections on distinct approaches to religion in U.S. diplomacy, particularly at the State Department, and the implications they may have for religious tolerance abroad. His post is the first of 12 prepared for an April 2019 workshop on “Religion, Reverence and Tolerance” organized by the Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice University.  Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/2z6CGZo